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ISTORIC 
GREEN BAY 



X 



1634 = 184:0 



ELLA HOES NEVILkE 
SARAH GREENE MARTIN 



DEBORAH BEAUMONT MARTIN 



GREEN BAY, WIS. 

PUBLISHED BY THE AUTHORS 

1893 




F ^fl 



Copyright, 1893, 

By Ella Hoes Neville, Sarah Greene Martin 

Deborah Beaumont Martin 



PRESS OF 

EVENING WISCONSIN COMPANY, 

MILWAUKEE. 



To the noble ivomen — loives of the early 
American settlers — ivho so successfully aided in 
the advancement of the little frontier town, this 
volume is affectionately dedicated. 



INTRODUCTORY NOTE. 



Wisconsin was being explored when Plymouth 
Colony was but fourteen years old, and from 
that time forward had a highly picturesque 
career. Under the French dominion of a cent- 
ury and a half, there swept across this stage a 
motley throng of Jesuits, soldiers, coureurs de hois, 
iind gentlemanly adventurers. We have the 
Marco Polo-like experiences of Nicolet and 
Radisson, first of fur-traders ; the fearless zeal 
of Allouez and Menard, seeking to bring Wis- 
consin savages to an adoration of the Christ ; the 
simple resoluteness of Marquette, type of the 
■exploring priest ; the dash and bravery of Per- 
rot and Du Lhut, princes of coureurs de bois ; the 
strange adventures of La Hontan and Henne- 
pin ; the imj>erial dreams of La kSalle. Mingled 
with this famous company, as a sort of chorus, 
were the singing voyageurs, gaily dight ; and the 
fiddling /?«6«7an, poor but happy in his narrow field. 
Then came the long and bitter struggle between 
French and English, in which De Langlade 
made Wisconsin known away off on the borders 
of Virginia — on Braddock's field, and in many 
another slaughter pen. When, in the next 
act of the drama, the English banner waved over 
Green Bay, Wisconsin remained French, as 
Quebec remains to-day, with the allegiance of 
the trader, the Jiahitan, and the voyageur trans- 
ferred to the conqueror. American supremacy, 
when it came, was not so kindly received here 
as the English, for the American is a land-grab- 
ber, and seeks to supplant barbarism with civili- 
-zation. So long, however, as the fur trade re- 
mained the ruling interest, the French were 
still supreme at Green Bay, and well into this 
century there existed at that old outpost of New 



France a social life which smacked of the old 
regime, which bore more traces of seventeenth - 
century Normandy, than of Puritan New 
England. But with the decadence of the 
forest trade a new order of things slowly grew 
up; and b}' 1840, two hundred years after Nicolet 
first trod its soil, Green Bay had become almost 
thoroughly Americanized, although just enough 
of the spirit of the past stills lingers there, to 
cast a halo of romance around the quaint old 
town, and make it congenial browsing ground 
for the student of human progress. 

The story of this venerable community is well 
worth telling. Heretofore it has lacked an ade- 
quate chronicler ; but the present authors, en- 
tering upon their task in a discriminating spirit, 
well-versed in the elements of their tale, and in- 
dustrious as well as zealous, have given us in 
this little book what cannot but be generally 
accepted as a truthful and worthy picture of 
Historic Green Bay. 

Reuben Gold Thwaites. 

Madison, Wis., Dec. 4, 1893. 

Authors' Note. — In the preparation of this 
sketch of old Green Bay we have received valu- 
able aid from various sources. We desire to ex- 
press our grateful acknowledgment to Mr. 
Eeubeii Gold Thwaites, Secretary of the State 
Historical Society, who has kindly revised both 
manuscript and proof, making numerous helpful 
suggestions; he has also made for us the copious 
index, which will greatly add to the value of the 
book. To Mr. David H. Grignon, Mi's James S. 
Baker, and Capt. Curtis R. Merrill, for the loan of 
letters and manuscripts, and to other friends, at 
home and abroad, who have given material as- 
sistance, we tender cordial thanks, regretting 
that lack of space prevents the mention of each 
by name. Major-General John C. Robinson, 
Mrs. Jefterson Davis, and the late Dr. Francis 
Parkman have also laid us under obligations- 
which we can repay only in gratitude. 

The Authors. 
Green Bay, Dec. 2, 1893. 



CONTENTS. 

1634-1745. 
CHAPTER I. 

PAGE. 

Early Explorations 1 

CHAPTER II. 
The Jesuits and Coureurs de Bois 24r 

CHAPTER III. 
Fort St. Francis and The Fox War 57 

1745-1815. 

CHAPTER IV. 

Charles de Langlade, First Permanent 

Settler and Military Hero 92 

CHAPTER V. 
'' In Good Old Colony Days" ; 12(> 

1815-1840. 

CHAPTER VI. 

Under the American Flag 147 

CHAPTER VII. 
A Transition Period 178 

CHAPTER VIII. 
The Lost Dauphin 210 

CHAPTER IX. 
In Later Years 231 

CHAPTER X. 
Growth Lender Territorial Government 257 

Index 277 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 



PAGE. 

Fox River at the Rapides des P^res 15 

Map made by the Jesuits, 1671 47 

Ostensoriiim presented by Nicholas Perrot, 

1686 74 

Base of Ostensorium 75 

■Commission of Charles de Langlade 107 

Home of Jacques Porlier 128 

Fort Howard in 1851 163 

Old anchor found in Fox River 174 

Judge Doty's residence atShantytown 187 

Chimney of Agency House, built 1825 209 

House where Priest Williams was married. 219 

Whitney homestead — first house in Nava- 

rino 235 

Old lighthouse tower, Long-Tail Point 271 



HISTORIC GREEN BAY. 
I634-I840. 



CHAPTER I. 
Early Explorations. 

The history of a new country is found 
written along her waterways, the record 
TDeginning at the seaboard, and slowly work- 
ing up each stream, opening a passage into 
the interior. Until 1634, the colonists, who 
were making the history of America, 
clung feebly to the " fringe of the con- 
tinent," no successful effort having been 
made to penetrate the mysteries lying be- 
yond the coast. 

There was a small settlement of English 
at Jamestown, at that time, numbering 
about two thousand souls, who, having 
given up the wild search for gold, which 
had brought them across the sea, had 
turned their attention to agriculture, and 
were raising tobacco in large quantities 
for shipment to England. Following the 
death of John Smith and Powhatan, the 
Indians had made an unsuccessful attempt 
to massacre, with the design of extermi- 
nating the colony. A bloody war was the 
result, in which the savages had been 



Early Exploratio7is. 



subdued, but the colonists scarcely yet 
dared venture beyond the sound of a 
cannon. 

To the north, on the Island of Manhat- 
tan, basking in the sunshine of successful 
trade with the natives, lay the Dutch 
settlement of New Amsterdam ; Wouter 
Van T wilier was governor. Dutch trading 
stations had sprung up all the way from 
the Connecticut River to the Delaware, and 
along the Hudson as far as Albany, but 
the colony was not large. 

Still farther to the north, on the forbid- 
ding and rocky shore of Massachusetts 
Bay, was another settlement, where a 
small band of earnest men and women 
were struggling for life. In the fourteen 
years which had elapsed since their land- 
ing, the Pilgrims had gradually increased 
in numbers until they had overspread the 
narrow strip of country where they first 
established themselves. From time to 
time small parties had gone forth from 
the colony, following the minister of their 
choice, through the pathless forest, until 
reaching some attractive spot, where they 
deemed the Lord had led them, they built 
log huts, raised palisades, and founded a 



Early Exploratioiis. 



new town. But this sturdy people, who 
gave to America the backbone and sinews 
of moral and intellectual worth, was yet 
lacking in the enthusiasm and imagination 
necessary to explorers ; the pioneers of the 
North American forests were of another 
race. 

Early in the century the French had 
become familiar with the coast and out- 
lying islands of Canada, and had estab- 
lished a colony at Quebec. In 1634, 
Samuel de Champlain was commander of 
the fort, and governor of New France, a 
position which, with the varying fortunes 
of the colony, he held at intervals for 
nearly twenty years. Though nomi- 
nally controlling the vast region which 
stretches from the St. Lawrence to the 
Gulf of Mexico, he was in reality only the 
prop and stay of a little band of half- 
starved Frenchmen, held together, through 
brief summers and bitter winters, by his 
courage and determination; for in him 
alone was the life of New France. In the 
intervals of almost yearly visits to France, 
— where we read of him as mingling in the 
court life at Fontainbleau, Chantilly, 
and Paris, — he was the companion of 



4 Early ExpIo7'atio7is. 

savages, sharing their privations, trials, 
and battles, while busy with new discov- 
eries, making charts of rivers and lakes, 
and noting all that could be learned of the 
unexplored land lying far to the west, 
and of the savage tribes by which it was 
inhabited. In that direction, across what 
was supposed to be only a narrow conti- 
nent, Champlain looked to find the short 
route to India, the discovery of which was 
the aim and ambition of the explorers of 
the age. 

Vague reports had reached Champlain, 
through the Algonquins, who came yearly 
to Quebec to barter peltries for French 
merchandise, of a strange nation, speak- 
ing an unfamiliar tongue, who dwelt in 
a country afterwards known as the region 
of La Baye, on the borders of a great water 
€onnecting wdth Lake Huron.* 

They were called Puants or Winnepe- 
gous, a term freely translated by the 
French into ''stinkards" or "men of the 
sea," as they were supposed to have 
emigrated from the Pacific, or even from 

^ * The region from Lake Michigan to the Mis- 
sissippi was known as the Country of the Puants 
or La Baye des Puants. The French called it 
also La P>ave. 



Early Explorations. 5 

tlie more distant shores of China.* 
Champlain's eager fancy pictured them 
as Hving either near or on a stream 
which emptied into the Vermihon 
Sea.f Of a nature credulous and ro- 
mantic, his imagination had been fired 
by these stories brought by the Indians, 
and he hoped, no doubt, to visit this dis- 
tant country and explore its treasures him- 
self. But the dangers and uncertainty of 
such a journey were not to be undertaken 
lightly, and it was necessary to await a 
more fLivorable time. He had traveled 
toward it, however, as far as Lake Huron, 
and a map made by him in 1632 shows 
that he had, from hearsay at least, a fair 
idea of that lake, of Lake Superior, and of 
the Fox-Wisconsin waterway, although 
the latter he places north, instead of south, 
of Lake Superior. 

In 1618 there had come to Quebec, from 

* Winnebagoes-Oiiinebegoutz. A Dakota tribe ; 
the name was given them by the Algonquins, and 
also means Fetid; they called themselves Oteha- 
gras, trout nation, or Horoji,fish eaters. Charle- 
voix says they received the name because along 
the shore near their cabins one saw nothing but 
stinking fish, which infected the air. — Relations 
1639-40, p. 35, Schoolcraft's History of the Indian 
Tribes, Vols. III., p. 277, IV., p. 227. Wis. Hist. 
Colls., Vol. III., p. 137. 

t Gulf of California. 2 



Eai'ly Explorations. 



Normandy, a youth who was destined to 
open the first page of the history of the 
Northwest. Jean Nicolet was born at 
Cherbourg about the year 1598, and was 
therefore in the first years of manhood 
w^hen he reached the shores of New France. 
Soon after his arrival he came under the 
notice of Cliamplain, who recognized in 
his quick wit, fearlessness, and sturdy hon- 
esty a power much needed in the furtlier- 
ance of his own plans for extending trade 
with the Indians, as well as pushing ex- 
plorations toward the west. 

Interpreters had been greatly needed in 
the new colony to facilitate intercourse 
with the natives, and for some j^ears the 
Governor had been sending young men to 
reside among the Indians for the purpose 
of learning their language and becoming 
acquainted with their manners and cus- 
toms. To this number Nicolet was added, 
and was sent far up the valley of the 
Ottawa, to Allumette Island, where he 
lived for two years among the Algonkins. 
Later he spent eight or nine years with 
the tribes in the vicinity of Lake Nipissing, 
isolated from civilization, living the wild 
life of the savages, and noting down his 



En fly Exp lor a tiotis . 



observations of Indian life and character.* 
Of a deeply religious nature, he is said 
to have suffered for the consolations of 
the church, " without which, among the 
savages, is great peril for the soul." For 
this reason, or it may be, recalled by 
Champlain, he left his forest life, and in 
1632 arrived at Quebec and assumed the 
duties of interpreter and clerk for the 
Hundred Associates, the great fur com- 
pany which Cardinal Richelieu ruled in 
France. 

Two years later word w^as brought to 
the settlement of trouble which had arisen 
between the Hurons and the distant tribe 
of Winnepeguus, and by the former the 
intercession of the French was requested. 
For this mission, Jean Nicolet was selected 
as best fitted, not only to endure the hard- 
ships of the journey, but to successfully 
conclude a treaty with the savages. His 
intimate knowledge of their character, 
with its complications of child-like trust- 
fulness. Spartan stoicism, and deadly spirit 
of revenge, had gained for him great in- 
fluence over them, which now could be 
used for the advantage of the French. 



* Jesuit Relations, 1635, p. 30. 



8 Early Explorations. 

On the first day of July, 1634, two fleets 
of canoes left Quebec and paddled up the 
St. Lawrence, the one to build a fort where 
to-day stands the town of Three Rivers, 
the other, under the direction of Father 
Brebeuf, to found a Jesuit mission among 
the Hurons. With the latter party was 
Jean Nicolet.* They took the only route 
then traveled by the French, up the 
Ottawa River, through Lake Nipissing, on 
the Georgian Bay, to Lake Huron. Some 
of the company were left at Allumette 
Island, while Nicolet, commissioned by the 
governor, proceeded to the Huron villages 
on Georgian Bay to obtain men of that 
nation to accompany him, seven of whom 
were selected as guides and boat men. 
Some time late in July, he finally em_ 
barked on his perilous voyage, over 
unknown waters, in search of the Win- 
nepegous. With him, in the long birch 
bark canoe, were the Huron savages, 
whose half-naked figures, dusky shoulders, 
and coarse, unkempt hair, he was to see 
]:>efore him w^eek after w^eek, as their long 
arms ceaselessly plied the paddles. 

Skirting the northern shore of Lake 



*Wis. Hist. Colls. Vol. YIII., p. 191. 



Early Explorations. 



Huron, they rounded the Manitoulin 
Islands and reaching the Sault St. Marie, 
ascended as far as the rapids ; there Nicolet 
remained for a few days' rest among the 
people of the Falls, without a glance, so far 
as known, at the great "sister of the sea," 
lying so near.* He descended the river 
and continued on to Mackinac Island, 
where the blue expanse of la douce mer 
meets the clear green waters of Lake 
Michigan. Seated in his frail canoe, a 
tiny craft to battle with wind-swept wastes 
and adverse tides, Nicolet passed through 
the Straits of Mackinac, out upon the 
great lake beyond, the first white man, 
it is believed, to look upon its broad sur- 
face. Autumn had overtaken the ex- 
plorer and his tawny boatmen, and they 
Avere often compelled to beach their canoe 
for days at a time, from stress of weather ; 
while frequent stops were made for visits 
among the various tribes inhabiting the 
coast, all so far branches of Algonquin 
stock and therefore friendly. Boldly pur- 
suing his course he rounded Point Detour 
and entered Big Bay de Noquet, where 
he found a small band of the Noquets, 
^Thwaites's Stoiy of Wisconsin, p. 26. 



TO Early Explorations. 

another Algonquin tribe, with whom he 
smoked the pipe of peace, and then hast- 
ened on. Coasting along the low western 
shore of Green Bay, he came to the Me- 
nominees, a tribe of "lighter complexion 
than their neighbors, remarkably well 
formed and active," dwelling on the bord- 
ers of a river which now bears their name. 
There he learned that the Winnepegous 
were distant only a few hours' journe}^ 
and sent one of the Hurons in advance to 
announce his coming ; then pressed on 
himself, eager to solve the mystery which 
for so long had hung about this people. 
Nicolet had brought with him a flow- 
ing robe of damask, richly embroidered 
in flowers and birds of various colors, that 
the envoy of the great governor of New 
France might appear in fitting garb before 
the stately Mandarins of the East, whom 
he expected to meet. We can imagine 
the explorer, bronzed and roughened by 
exposure, looking not unlike the natives 
themselves, drawing this gorgeous gar- 
ment over his weather-stained deer-skin 
suit^ and the awe with which such unaccus- 
tomed magnificence impressed his dusky 
associates. Seated in state in the canoe, he 



Early Explorations. 1 1 

was carried along the western shore from 
Avhence was visible the now familiar bluffs 
of Red Banks, — the traditionary Garden of 
Eden of the Winnepegous, * where not many 
years later, according to legend, a bloody 
Indian battle was fought. f Reaching Long 
Tail Point, jutting far out towards the east, 
they took advantage of the short-cut afford- 
ed, and passed through the channel separat- 
ing the point from the main-land. Coming 
to Grass Island, that low green bar which 
until recent years stretched from the west- 
ern shore three miles or more eastward, 
they again saved a long detour by push- 
ing through one of the Bass Channels, 
and crossing the inner bay, Nicolet saw 
before him the mouth of the river of the 
Puants, better known to the Indians as the 
Outagamie. J 

Summer had passed, and the great fields 
of wild rice, which earlier in the season 
w^ere a waving wealth of green, leaving 
only a narrow channel up the river, had 
dwindled to a remnant of skeleton stalks, 
through which the light wind sighed and 

*Thwaites'8 Story of Wisconsin, p. 28. 

t Wis. Hist. Colls., Vols. II., 491; III., 203. 

t At a later day called Neenah, and now known 
as Fox River. 



12 Em'ly Explorations. 

rustled ; for on one of the golden days of 
October, it is probable, the first white man 
landed on these shores. The canoe was 
run up on the beach, and, stepping out 
with all the dignit}^ of an ambassador, 
Nicolet advanced slowly, discharging at 
the same time two small pistols, which he 
held in either hand. No denizens of the 
Flowery Kingdom, attired, like himself, in 
costly gowns of embroidered damask, 
came forth to meet him, only a horde of 
naked savages crowded down to the shore, 
while the women and children ran shriek- 
ing from the " strange being who carried 
thunder in both hands." 

Concealing his feeling of disgust and 
disappointment, Nicolet stalked forward, 
trailing his useless robe of ceremony, and 
was soon joined with the Winnepegous in 
friendly council. The news of his coming- 
spread rapidly among the neighboring 
nations "and four or five thousand war- 
riors assembled. Each of the chiefs gave 
a feast and at one of these, one hunderd 
and twenty-five beavers were eaten. Peace 
was concluded." Thus ends Pere Vimont's* 
account of the first visit of a Frenchman 

* Relations, 1643, pp. 3 et seq. 



Early Explorations. ij 

to the place where now stand the sister 
cities of Green Bay and Fort Howard. 

Having completed his mission to the 
Winnepegous, Nicolet proceeded on liis 
way to visit the Mascoutins, then located 
some distance up the river of the Puants. 
This stream, which rises in the springs of 
Columbia County, flows, in turn, toward 
each point of the compass — turning, twist- 
ing, through prairie, marsh, and wallow 
copse, like the sinuous serpent whose trail 
it is said to have followed.* Approaching, 
in the first league of its journey to within 
something over a mile of the Wisconsin, f 
it turns suddenly, and, after receiving the 
waters of the Wolf, is soon lost in Lake Win- 
nebago. Starting afresh, it winds its w^ay 
between picturesque shores ; at times broad 
and shallow, it hurries in shining rapids 
over its bed, then narrowed by some jutting 
headland to a few rods in width, resumes 
its tranquil flow^ and so goes on until, five 
miles above its mouth, it reaches the pres- 
ent site of the City of De Pere. There, after 
a last rush, it broadens out to a good mile 
from shore to shore, and then sweeps stead- 
ily onw^ard to the broad waters of the Bay. 

*Thwaites's Story of Wisconsin, p. 33. 
fThe famous Portage, of a later day. 



14 Early Explorations. 

Nicolet found the Mascoutins not far 
from the present site of Berhn. After a 
stay of some length at their village, he took 
his path over the prairie to the south and 
visited the nations of the Illinois, returning 
to Quebec by way of Lake Michigan, the 
following spring.* The few remaining 
years of this noted man's life w^ere full of 
usefulness and honor. Beloved by French- 
men and Indians, and the trusted ally of 
the missionaries, he contributed to the ad- 
vancement of the colonies in Canada and 
to winning souls for God and Holy Church. 
On the 27th of October, 1642, he was 
drowned in the St. Lawrence while mak- 
ing the trip from Quebec to Three Rivers, 
to save an Indian prisoner from torture. 
Thus passed from earth one whose name is 
recalled in Canada by river, town, college, 
and county, but in the west, where he led 
the van of civilization, is singularly for- 
gotten. 

In 1635, on Christmas day, Samuel de 
C'hamplain died, and with him passed 
away much of the life of the colony and 
its interest in western explorations. War 
between England and France and the 
*Thwaites's Story of Wisconsin, p. 34. 



o 






a- 

a> 




Early Explorations . 



disputed supremacy in Canada, had also 
drawn the attention of Xew France from 
further discoveries, while individuals were 
deterred from the distant voyage because 
of the enmity of the Iroquois, which made 
traveling, except in large parties, extremely 
hazardous. 

Radisson and Groseilliers, names un- 
known to history, until recent j^ears,'^ 
were yet among the most intrepid and suc- 
cessful explorers over western waterways, 
during the latter half of the 17th cen- 
tury. Radisson had been something of a 
traveler in the forests of the east before 
he was joined in his journeying by Gro- 
seilliers, his sister's husband. Held to- 
gether not only by famih^ ties, but by 
the stronger one of sympathy and friend- 
ship, they made valuable discoveries in 
savage wilds ; were pioneers in the com- 
merce of the northwest ; the first traders, 
so far as known, and the founders of the 
great Hudson Bay Fur Company. We 
have the story of many of their wander- 
ings in the quaint, unlettered, but pictur- 
esque writings of Pvadisson. He flound- 



*Wi8. Hist. Colls., Vols. X., p. 292, and XI., 
pp. 64-96. 



i8 Early ExploriUious. 

ers and gets into deep waters with his 
French y-EngHsh, but writes strongly and 
to the point, as when he describes one tribe 
which he visited as the "conrsedest unabl- 
est, the unfamous and cowarliest people. '^ 
He must, however, have conveyed to 
Charles 11. of England, for whom it is sup- 
posed the manuscripts were prepared, a 
unique conception of savage life, when he 
wrote of visiting the Indians in their "apart- 
ments," but his journal is a valuable addi- 
tion to history ; his quick wit brightens all 
that he looked upon, and gives interest to 
even the most sombre detail. The manu- 
scripts fell into the hands of Pepys, then 
secretary of the Admiralty to Charles, and 
that part descriptive of his western travels, 
with Pepys' own writings, in 1703, came 
into the possession of London shop-keepers, 
w^hen both wTiters had passed from earth. 
After much peril and the destruction of 
some of them as waste paper, they w^ere 
rescued and at last drifted into the British 
Museum, where they now are. It was not 
until 1885 that they were discovered by 
Mr. Gideon D. Scull, of London, trans- 
cribed by him and became known in 
Wisconsin. 



Early Explorations. IQ 

It was about the middle of June, 1658, 
that these travelers and twenty-nine other 
Frenchmen left Three Rivers, over the 
usual route to the upper country, having 
with them Huron " wildmen," who acted 
as guides. They had not journeyed far 
up the Ottawa when they were attacked 
by a wandering band of Iroquois, whose 
tireless and resistless enmity against the 
French had been provoked by Champlain 
while espousing the interests of the Algon- 
quin tribes against them. Radissonand 
Groseilliers had anticipated the attack 
and met it with a brave defense, but 
their fellow voyagers, " who would travel 
and see new countries," frightened and 
put to rout, turned and fled to Three 
Rivers and the protection of the Fort. 
Even their names are unknown, while 
Radisson and Groseilliers, by continuing 
forward, earned the distinction of being 
first to explore Lake Superior; to paddle 
down the Wisconsin, and float on the 
waters of the upper Mississippi, fifteen 
years prior to the famed discovery of 
Marquette and Joliet. 

Their first landing, after a prosper- 
ous voyage, was at a Huron village on 



20 Early Explorations. 

one of the lesser Manitouliii Islands, 
where they assisted their hosts in over- 
coming a party of eleven Iroquois, 
eight of whom were slain and three 
captured alive. This victory won the entire 
confidence of the Hurons, who, believing 
their guests to be Manitous bringing success 
to their arms, wished to detain them 
indefinitely ; it was only at the travelers' 
urgent request that they were finally fur- 
nished with boats and helped on their way, 
for their desire, Radisson says, " was not 
to stay in an island, but to be known with 
the remotest people." Stopping at the 
Grand Manitoulin for a short rest with the 
nation of" ye staring haires,"* they pushed 
slowly on until it was nearl}^ autumn, when 
they skirted along the northern shore of 
Lake Michigan. 

Near in g La Baye, they reached a popu- 
lous Indian country, filled with excite- 
ment at the news which their am- 
bassador had brought of their approach. 
To realize the interest their arrival 
inspired, it must be remembered that 
only once before had these children of the 

*The Ottawas, so called from the manner of 
wearing their hair erect, like the quills of the 
porcui^ine. 



Early Explorations. 21 

forest been visited by a white man, and 
twenty-four years had passed since then, 
during which many changes had taken 
place, — papooses had grown into braves, 
and aged warriors had gone to the spirit 
land. It was, naturally, an occasion for 
rejoicing ; " feasts were made, dames with 
guifts came of each side .wV' a great deal 
of mirth." The winter was spent in the 
region of the Baye des Puants, and at its 
conclusion Radisson writes : " I assure you 
I liked no country as that wherein we 
wintered ; for whatever a man could desire 
was to be had in plenty, viz.: stagges, 
fishes in abundance and all sorts of meat ; 
corn enough." 

In the spring the two men ascended 
the Fox River to visit the Mascoutins, 
who yet dwelt where Nicolet had found 
them, a little back from the river, 
and above Lake Winnebago. For four 
months they were carried about from river 
to river in the canoes of these admiring 
Indians, becoming familiar with regions 
heretofore unvisited, and doing more to- 
wards the future opening up and develop- 
ment of the country than could, at the 
time, have been understood. It was on this 



22 Early Explorations. 

journey, some time during the summer 
of 1659, that they visited the Mississippi. 
'' That summer I went a hunting," Radisson 
writes, and then in his entangled, inconse- 
quential style, states the discovery of " ye 
great river, Avhich divides itself in two, and 
which we believe runs towards Mexico b}^ 
the tokens they gave us." A part of the next 
winter was spent in that which is now the 
state of Wisconsin, near the head w^aters 
of the Chippew^a, but as far as we now 
know^, these interesting travelers never 
again visited La Baye. 

Important discoveries were made and 
great advancement in trade brought about 
by these two men, serving alternately un- 
der the French and English flags as fancy 
or self-interest dictated ; but the interest 
in Groseilliers pales before Radisson, the 
debonair Frenchman, who shoW'S like a 
hero of romance in the annals of the sev- 
enteenth centur3^ Voyaging on unknown 
waters, in deadly peril from hostile Indans, 
brought to the verge of starvation in Hu- 
ron wigwams, he at last steps gaily off the 
stage, courted and honored in England 
and wedded to the daughter of an English 
peer. That which most men w^ould con- 



Early Explorations. 2j 

sider an achievement worth the toil of a 
Hfetime, he treats as a summer ramble, 
and lightly tells of discoveries which ex- 
plorers of a later day perjured themselves 
to claim. 

Thus the pale face first set foot upon 
the borders of the lower Fox. Many years 
elapsed before the Indian was driven from 
the valley of his loved Outagamie, but 
the wedge had entered which in the end 
was to rive the tribes asunder and reduce 
them from powerful nations to mere vas- 
sals of the invader ; from haughty owners 
of the soil to dependents upon a govern- 
ment false to its promises and unmindful 
of the w^elfare of its wards. 



CHAPTER II. 
The Jesuits and Coureurs de Bois. 

During tlie decade that followed the 
adventurous journey of Radisson and 
Groseilliers, two powerful agencies were at 
work for the advancement of European 
influence, in what was then the far west. 
Commerce and religion struggled together, 
advancing slowly, side by side, into the 
heart of the new country, until, in course 
of time, there was to be seen within every 
palisaded enclosure, a trader's hut and a 
mission chapel, each dependent upon the 
other. 

The pious missionaries, sent out by the 
Catholic Church to convert the savages, 
were the convenient instruments used by 
the crafty mercenaries of Quebec to effect 
their own selfish design in entering the new 
country, but, as the traders became firmly 
established, the priests were cast aside, and 
protection withdrawn from the mission sta- 
tions, without which they could not exist. 
It is impossible to estimate the power for 
good which the holy lives and teachings of 

21 



Early Explorations. 25 

the fathers exerted over the natives during 
these years ; but French brandy, and the 
civiHzed vices of the coureurs de bois in the 
end proved the stronger, and after a cen- 
tury of labor the missionaries were obhged 
to withdraw from the field for the lack of 
a following. Of many of these years, there 
is a full and undoubtedly accurate record 
in the Jesuit Relations, a continuous narra- 
tive written in the form of reports, by the 
different members of the Order of Jesus oc- 
cupying mission stations from 1633 to 1679, 
and transmitted through the Superior at 
Quebec to the Provincials at Paris. These 
writings record in detail the progress of 
Christianity among the natives, inter- 
spersed with descriptions of the new 
country opening to missionary work. In 
the first reports, mention is made of a 
rumor which had reached Quebec, of 
numerous tribes gathered in the region of 
the Puants, which is described as being 
only nine days' journey from the great 
lake,* and lying on the borders of a sea 
which separates America from China. In 
1639, Pere Vimont, in his report, mentions 
having been told by one who had visited 
*Lake Huron. 



26 The Jesuits and Coureurs de Bois. 

these tribes, that he had seen them "assem- 
bled as in a fair to buy and sell, in numbers 
so great that they could not be counted ; it 
gave an idea of the cities of Europe." 
Another priest states that they would not 
allow the ''rage of hell, nor the cruelty of 
the Iroquois, which is worse than the 
demons of hell," to stand in the way of 
their occupying this rich field, but the 
organization, numbering only fifteen mem- 
bers on this side the ocean, was not at that 
time strong enough to conduct a mission 
so far from the parent society. 

In the year 1660, the first attempt was 
made to establish the faith in what is now 
Wisconsin, when for a short time the aged 
Jesuit priest. Father Rene Menard, in- 
structed the Indians on the shore of 
Lake Superior, but soon laid down his 
life in the holy cause, either killed by 
lurking savages, or dying from exposure 
while lost in the woods, portaging around 
one of the rapids in the Black River.* 



■^Thwaites's Story of Wisconsin, p. 46. 

Shea's Catholic Church in Colonial Days states 
that Menard was killed on the upper waters of 
the Wisconsin River. Indian legend places the 
occurance on the bay shore, M^hile in History 
of Northern Wis. (West. Hist. Co.), he is said to 
have died at the first rapids of the Menominee. 



The yesuits and Courein's de Bois. 27 

This sad event left the station vacant, and 
in August, 1665, Pere Claude Allouez was 
sent to continue the work, which had had 
such an unfavorable beginning. He lo- 
cated the mission at a place then known 
as La Pointe, on Chequamegon Bay, and 
named it in honor of the Holy Ghost, call- 
ing the region La Pointe du Saint Esprit. 
To this, the earliest chapel built on the 
southern shore of Lake Superior, repre- 
sentatives of many different nations flocked, 
eager to meet a Frenchman and hear his 
interesting stories of the new religion. The 
Chippewas came from the Sault and 
pitched their bark lodges near his cabin, 
listening to his instructions. The Sacs 
and Foxes followed the trail through the 
forests, and the Illinois left their prairies, 
and traveled on foot, to see the wonderful 
medicine man. The Pottawattamies also 
came and brought reports from their 
country, of the Baye des Puants, where 
French traders had established themselves 
and were givmg offense to the numerous 
tribes of that vicinity. This latter tribe 
begged Allouez to return with them and 
settle these troubles, and, although they 
envinced no disposition for the faith, he 



28 The yesuits a fid Coureurs de Bois. 



would have gone to their country, deeming 
it the best field for the gospel, but for the 
present, as he wrote his superiors, his time 
was fully occupied. During the early 
summer of 1669 he went down to Quebec 
to lay the subject of establishing a mis- 
sion at La Baye before the society, taking 
with him several Iroquois captives whom 
he had rescued from their enemies, and 
through whom he was successful in effect- 
ing a temporary peace between the Five 
Nations and the western tribes. 

The season was far advanced before 
Allouez was able to embark on his return to 
Lake Superior. As far as Michillimackinac, 
he was accompanied by Pere Dablon, 
who had been appointed Superior of the 
Mission of the Outatouacs, of Avhich the 
Baye des Puants was soon to become a 
part. Allouez continued on to La Pointe, 
but in November, having been relieved by 
Father Jacques Marquette, he and two 
other Frenchmen set out with a band of 
Pottawattamies to carry the announcement 
of Christianity to the inhabitants along 
the valley of the lower Fox. They arrived 
safely at the Sault in the latter part of 
October, and left there November third. It 



The 'yes nits and Coureiirs de Bois. 2^ 

was late in the season for a journey on the 
Avaters of this northern latitude, and the 
travelers encountered storms of sleet and 
snow, while cold, cutting winds made pro- 
gress painfully slow, and at times ship- 
wreck appeared almost inevitable. 

In a letter written by Father Allouez to 
the Rev. Father Superior, he gives a 
graphic description of this adventurous 
vovaffe.* He savs: " We set out from the 
Sault the third of November, according to 
my dates ; two canoes of Pouteouatamis, 
wishing to take me to their country, not 
that I might instruct them, they having no 
disposition to receive the faith, but to 
mollify some young Frenchmen, who were 
among them for the purpose of trading, 
and who threatened and ill-treated them. 
The first day, Ave arrived at the entrance of 
Lake Huron, where we slept under shelter 
of the islands ; the length of the voyage and 
the difficulties of the route in consequence 
of the lateness of the season, hastened us to 
have recourse to St. Francis Xavier, the 
patron of our mission, by obliging me to 
celebrate the holy mass, and m}^ two com- 
panions to commune, on the day of the 

* Relations, 1670, 92-100. 



JO The 'ye suits and Coiireurs de Bois. 

festival, in his honor, and further to invoke 
his aid twice every day by reciting his 
prayers. 

"About mid-day on the fourth, we 
doubled the cape which forms the bend, 
and is the commencement of the strait or 
gulf of Lake Huron, well known, and of 
Lakelleaoliers,* as yet unexplored. Toward 
evening, the contrary wind, which was near 
driving our canoe upon the reefs of rocks, 
obliged us to cut short our day's journey. 

"On the morning of the 5th, when 
we awoke, we found ourselves covered 
with snow, and the edges of the water 
frozen. It was with great difficulty 
that we embarked with all the clothing 
and provisions, being obliged to enter the 
water with our bare feet, in order to keep 
the canoe afloat, otherwise it would have 
been broken. Having passed a great num- 
ber of islands toward the north, we were 
detained six days by the bad weather ; the 
snow and frost menacing us with ice, my 
companions had recourse to St. Anne, to 
whom we recommended our voyage, pray- 
ing her, with St. Francis Xavier, to take 



■^Illinois or Michigan. The Indian name was 
Machihiganing. 



The 'ye suits and Coureurs de Bois. ji 

us under their protection. On the 11th 
we embarked, notwithstanding the con- 
trary wind ; we crossed to another island 
and from thence to the main land, where 
we found two Frenchmen with several 
savages. We learned from them the great 
dangers to which we were about to expose 
ourselves, in consequence of the storms so 
frequent on this lake, and the ice which 
would very soon begin to float ; but all 
this was insufficient to destroy the confi- 
dence we had placed in our protectors. We 
launched our canoe into the water after hav- 
ing invoked their aid, and soon had the 
good fortune to double in safety the cape 
which turns off to the west, having left be- 
hind us a great island called Michillimaki- 
nak, celebrated among the savages. 

"Having continued our navigation until 
the 25th through continued dangers, God 
delivered us from our troubles by bring- 
ing us to the cabin of some Pouteouata- 
mis, who were engaged in fishing and 
hunting on the borders of the forest. 
They regaled us with everything they had, 
but chiefly with beech-nuts, which are a 
fruit of the beech tree ; these they roast 
and pound into flour. I had leisure to 



J 2 The 'ye suits and Coureurs de Bo is. 

instruct them, and to confer baptism on 
two small sick children." 

"On the 27th, while we were endeavor- 
ing to make all the headway that was 
possible, we were discovered by four cab- 
ins of savages, called Oumalouminek* 
who urged us to disembark ; as they were 
closely pressed by hunger, and we at the 
end of our provisions, we could not remain 
very long together. 

" On the 29th we w^ere greatly troubled 
at finding the mouth of the river that we 
wdshed to enter, closed with ice, and we 
expected to have to make the rest of the 
journey by land. But an impetuous wind 
springing up during the night, enabled 
us, by breaking up the ice, to continue our 
navigation, which came to a close on the 
2d of December, the eve of the day of St. 
Francis Xavier, by our arrival at the place 
where the Frenchmen were." 

As soon as the party landed they re- 
turned thanks to St. Francis for the suc- 
cor he had procured for them during their 
voyage, and prayed him to take the mission 
they were about to commence under his 



■^Menominees. Also Maloumines, Marou- 
mines, FoUes Avoines, or Wild Rice Indians. 



The 'Jesuits and Coureurs de Bois. jj 

protection. On tlie following day holy 
mass was celebrated, at the same place, 
consecrating the forests and its inhabit- 
ants to the purposes of a Christian king. 
In this service the reverend priest was 
assisted by eight Frenchmen, six of whom 
he found trading among the Indians. 

''The savages having taken up their 
winter quarters," Allouez continues, " I 
found here only one village, comprising 
several nations, Ousaki,* Pouteouatamis, 
Outagami,t Ouenibigoutz,J containing 
about six hundred souls; eight leagues 
from this, on the other side of the bay, is 
another village containing about three 
hundred souls. . All these nations have 
their fields of Indian corn, gourds, 
beans and tobacco." But he complains 
that the savages were more than com- 
monly barbarous, not knowing how to 
make even a bark dish, nor a pot, most 
often making use of shells, and that they 
had only " what was merely necessary." 

*Sacs or Sauks. 

fThe name Oiitagami is Algonquin for a fox. 
Hence the French called the tribe Eenards, and 
the Americans, Foxes. They called themselves 
Musquawkies, which is said to mean "red earth" 
and to be derived from the color of the soil near 
one of their villages. 

X Winnebagoe^.' 



24 The Jesuits and Coureurs de Bois. 

The season was not advantageous, there 
being great scarcity, therefore Allouez 
and his party could obtain but httle 
assistance; they had much trouble for 
their maintenance and often endured hun- 
ger ; — " scarcely have we found shelter ; all 
our nourishment has been only Indian 
corn and acorns ; the little of fish, which 
is only rarely seen, is very bad ; the w^ater 
of this bay and its rivers is similar to that 
which stagnates in ditches." 

The place where Allouez landed, and the 
first religious service of La Baye w^as held, 
is not certainly known, but vague Indian 
tradition locates it on the east side of the 
Fox River, upon a rather bold point of land, 
about twenty rods north of the present 
site of the power-house of the street 
railway, where the shore in early days 
curved outward in undulating lines of 
changing sandy beach. For many rods 
inland and along the river shore there 
was not a tree nor shrub. Toward the 
northeast the land lay low and marshy 
covered with a ragged grow^th of tamarack 
and cedar, and there a broad and shal- 
low slough discharged itself into the river ; 
south on the higher ground were col- 



The yesuits and Coiireurs de Bois. J5 



lected the wigwams of the mixed Indian 
village.* 

With the arrival of Allouez, there came 
a new influence to control for a period, 
the development of the country, and for 
the first time there was seen on the shores 
of the river, the black-robed figure which 
was thenceforth to go up and down the 
land, becoming part of the web and woof 
of the history of Wisconsin. Father 
Allouez remained at this motley Indian 
village during the winter, gaining the 
good will of the savages by announcing 
the peace which their Father, the French 
Governor, had made for them with the 
Iroquois, and instructing them in the mys- 
teries of the church. He had translated 
the Lord's Prayer and Hail Mary into a 
language which they understood, and on 
Sundays a service of prayer and instruc- 
tion was held for those who were inclined 
to accept the faith. Allouez began his 

^Investigations are now on foot to ascertain 
definitel}' the exact spot where Allouez landed 
and first established his mission, it being con- 
tended that it was on the north shore of the Me- 
nominee River, or perhaps one of the small 
streams emptying into the bay from the west. 
Until this is j^roved, however, we hold to the 
previously-accepted interpretation of the Rela- 
tions, that the mixed Indian village was on the 
river at the head of the bav. 



J 6 The Jesuits and Coiireurs de Bois. 

teachings among the Sacs, and in Feb- 
ruary went to a village of the Pottawatta- 
mies on the east shore of the bay, sup- 
posed by some antiquarians to have been 
situated at Red Banks.* He was cordially 
received by this tribe and heard with at- 
tention ; when about to take his departure 
he was urged to remain, or if that was 
impossible to send another priest to dwell 
among them. On the 23d, Allouez writes : 
^'We took the road to return, but the wind, 
that froze our faces, and the snow obliged 
us, after going two leagues, to stop and 
pass the night on the ice. The next day 
the severity of the weather being a little 
diminished, we continued our route, with 
much inconvenience ; for my portion of it 
I had the nose frozen, and a faintness 
which obliged me to seat myself on the 
ice, where 1 should have remained, my 
companions having gained the advance, 
if, by Divine Providence, I had not found 
in my handkerchief a clove, which gave 
me strength enough to reach the cabins." 
The winter proved too short for instruc- 

*This tribe, whose traditions, as first recorded 
by Father De Smet (Oregon Missions, p 343), gave 
Longfellow the matter of his Hiawatha. — J. G. 
Shea, Wis. Hist. Colls., Vol. III., p. 136. 



The 'Jesuits and Coureurs de Bo is. jy 

tioii to be given in all the villages before 
the first thaws of March scattered the 
tribes to their spring hunting grounds. 
The five months of labor resulted only in 
the conversion of one young man, who 
was baptised while in a dying condition, 
and the baptism of a number of sick chil- 
dren, but over even this meagre showing 
Allouez rejoiced. 

The ice did not break up until the 12th 
of April. " The sixteenth," Allouez says, 
^' I embarked to go and commence the 
mission of the Outagamis, a people well 
known in these parts. We passed the 
night at the head of the bay {nous fumes 
wvdier au bout de Vanse), at the entrance 
of the River of the Puans, which we 
have named St. Francis. In passing we 
saw clouds of swans, bustards and ducks, 
the savages take them in nets at the head 
of the bay, where they catch as many as 
fifty in a night ; this game in the autumn 
seek the wild rice that the wind has 
shaken off in the month of September. 
On the 17th, w^e went up the River St. 
Francis, two and sometimes three arpens 
wide. After having advanced four 
leagues, w^e found the village of the 



jc? The Jesuits and Coureurs de Bois. 

savages named the Saki,* who began a 
work that merits well here to have its 
place. From one side of the river to the 
other, they made a barricade, planting-^ 
great stakes two fathoms from the water,, 
in such a manner that there is, as it were, 
a bridge above, for the fishers, who, by 
the aid of a little bow net, easily take stur- 
geons and all other kinds of fish which 
this pier stops, although the water does 
not cease to flow between the stakes ; they 
call this device Mitchigan ; they make 
use of it in the spring and a part of tlie 
summer." 

He passed on up the river and through 
Lake Winnebago to the Foxes on the 
Wolf River, wdiere he established the mis- 
sion of St. Mark. After visiting the Mas- 
coutins, Miamis, and other tribes in the 
neighborhood, he commenced his return 
voyage. He writes : " Time pressed us ; 
I took my way towards the place whence 
I had set out, where I happily arrived, 
by the River St. Francis, in three days.'^ 
In making the passage of the rapids of 
Kakaling his canoe was broken upon the 

* Situated at De Pere. The estimates of dis- 
tances made by the Fathers are often very inaccu- 
rate, of which this is an example. 



The y^esuiis ami Coureiirs de Bois. jg 

rocks and the contents injured by water. 
On the 6th of May he visited the Ouma- 
touminck,* "distant," as he says, "about 
eight leagues from our cabin, I found 
them in small numbers on their river, 
the young men being still in the 
woods. This nation has been almost ex- 
terminated by war." He continued his 
voyage, visiting the tribes along the bay 
shore, and "on the 20th embarked with a 
Frenchman and a savage to go to Saint 
Mary on the Sault, where duty calls me, 
leaving all these people in the hope that 
we will return next Autumn, as I had 
promised them." Such was the first an- 
nouncement of Christianity in the heart 
of Wisconsin. The teachings of the 
church had been successfully begun, 
though so far there were few converts. 

While this solitary representative of the 
great order of Loyola was slowly gaining 
an uncertain foothold in the region of the 
Puants, other adventurers were estab- 
lishing themselves in the vicinity. As 
early as 1660 the coureurs de bois formed a 
distinct class under the dashing Du Lhut,t 

*Menominees. 

t Parkman's Old Regime, p. olO. 



40 The 'ye suits and Coureurs de Bois. 

and following in the wake of Radisson 
and Groseilleirs, sought to reap the advan- 
tages of the lucrative traffic in furs grow- 
ing up in the west. Up to 1669 the One- 
Hundred Associates sought to monopo- 
lize this trade, and stringent laws were 
made to control it, which forbade all 
barter with the Indians outside the town 
of Quebec, on pain of flogging for the first 
offense, and for the second imprisonment 
for life. Despite this, the illegal traffic, 
at which the governors of New France are 
said to have connived,* grew to such pro- 
portions that the Intendant Du Chesneau 
reported that eight hundred men, out of 
a population of ten thousand, had vanished 
from sight into the wilderness. In 1680 
he writes, "there is not a family of any 
condition or quality whatever, that has not 
children, brothers, uncles and nephews 
among the coureurs de hois^ 

Before the arrival of Allouez these men 
had become established along the Fox and 
Wolf Rivers, and that tongue of land 
formed by the Fox and its small tributary 
East River, called Manitou by the Indians 

* Turner's Character and Influence of the Fur 
Trade in Wisconsin, p. 66. 



The yesuits and Coureurs de Bois. 41 

and later known as Riviere du Diable to 
the French, was a popular rendezvous and 
camping ground for them. There during 
the summer they idled away their time 
in unbridled pleasure, but when the sea- 
son arrived at which the thick soft fur 
of the beaver was in its finest condition, 
and the ice on the rivers and marshes 
strong enough to allow approach to tlie 
home of the canny little animal, they fol- 
lowed the savages to their winter hunting 
grounds, enduring hardship and fatigue 
with the indifferance of natives, that they 
might secure from the hunters the pelts 
which were taken. This was accomplished 
by threatening and cajoling the Indians, 
and temping them with articles chosen es- 
pecially to please their savage fancy — cop- 
per kettles, hatchets of a form almost un- 
known at this day, scalping knives, ivory 
combs, vermilion to beautify the chiefs, 
necklaces, bracelets, little bells, tin looking 
glasses, and an occasional gun, clumsily 
made, yet the most coveted of all because 
of the ascendency it gave its possessor in 
chase or war. At the approach of spring 
the canoes of the voyageurs were freshly 
smeared Avith pitch, and when navigation 



42 The 'ye suits and Coureurs de Bois. 

opaned they made the long journey to 
^lontreal, disposed of their peltries to mer- 
chants who cared little how they were ob- 
tained, and after a brief season of wild 
carousal were off again to the woods to 
meet their savage associates. 

Of the eight Frenchmen gathered on 
the river bank for the religious service held 
by Father Allouez, it is reasonable to sup- 
pose that one was Nicholas Ferrot, a man 
more widely known and of greater influence 
than any of the early voyageurs. One 
cannot read many pages of the old French 
annals of the latter part of the seventeenth 
century without encountering Perrot's 
name, and the record of some service ren- 
dered by him to France during those 
eventful years. Born in 1644 of poor and 
obscure parents, his first years were those 
of privation, though he had the advantage 
of some schooling, and was, in that he 
could read and write, in advance of the 
ordinary voyageurs. His studies were, how- 
ever, early interrupted, that he might enter 
the service of the Jesuits, who employed 
young men and boys, to go to their mission 
stations, till the soil, hunt, fish and per- 
form the labors for which the priests were 



The ycsuits a?id Coureurs de Bois. 43 

unfitted ; they were called donnes, or given 
men, when they gave their services gratui- 
tously, or engages w^hen paid a small 
salary. Among this number Perrot was 
■enrolled* and thus a taste was developed 
for the free out door life of the wood 
ranger, in which, in after time, he be- 
came famous. 

When only seventeen years of age he 
began his travels in the west, but it was not 
until 1665, that he came to this region as 
an independent coureur de bois.f From that 
time until his recall, thirty-five years later, 
his influence was invaluable to the govern- 
ment, in uniting the western tribes against 
the Iroquois, thus preventing the English 
from interfering with the rich fur trade of 
the interior. Shortly after his arrival at the 
Baye des Puants, he was fortunate in ar- 
ranging a peace between the Menominees 
and the Pottawattamies, who were on the 
«ve of war. J Thenceforth his influence 
with the tribes was unbounded, and 
swayed though they might l)e by the 
varying treatment received at the hands 



* Taliban's Perrot. 

t Wis. Hist. Colls., Vol. VIII., p. 20a. 

X Tailhan's Perrot. 



44 The 'ye suits and Coureurs de Bois. 

of the French, thev retained to the end 
an undiminished confidence in Perrot. 

In the spring of 1670, about the time 
of the departure of Allouez, Perrot em- 
barked from La Baye, in charge of a fur 
fleet of thirty canoes, bound for Canada, 
each bearing from thirty to forty packets 
of choice furs — the soft, fine skin of the 
beaver and black otter, rarely found in 
eastern streams, martin, mink, racoon,, 
bear, lynx, and other varieties, placed 
under canvas or oil-skin covers for pro- 
tection in stormy weather. The graceful 
canoes of birch bark, shaped like Venetian 
gondolas, ribbed with cedar, and gummed 
at the seams with pitch of the yellow pine,, 
propelled swiftly by the cleverly manipu- 
lated paddles, floated in the clear May sun- 
shine past the low shores, clothed in the 
pale green of early spriilg, out on the 
bright waters of the lake. Keen watch was 
kept, for there w^as always possibility of 
encounter with the dreaded Iroquois, but 
the voyage was accomplished in safet}^, the 
fleet gaining in numbers as it passed 
through the lake region, until nine 
hundred savages, under guidance of five 
Frenchmen, swept, in the peltry-laden 
canoes, down the Ottawa to Montreal. The 



The yesuits and Courcurs de Bois. 4^ 

day following their arrival was spent in 
putting up rough lodges, and arranging 
a camp near the river shore, while the 
second was given to a council with the 
French, held at the fort, where they 
smoked the pipe of peace, and planned 
future traffic. The third and fourth days 
of their stay were occupied in barter- 
ing furs for kettles, knives, cloth, beads, 
iron arrow heads, coats, shirts, and other 
commodities ; by daybreak on the morning 
of the sixth, all had vanished like a flock 
of migratory birds, save Perrot, who re- 
mained in Montreal.* 

During the following fall Pere AUouez 
returned to the Mission of St. Francis 
Xavier, reaching there on the 6th of Sep- 
tember, 1670, accompanied by the Supe- 
rior, Pere Dablon. They found serious 
trouble in the village at the head of the 
bay, but this time it was the exasperated 
traders who appealed to the Fathers to 
arbitrate in their behalf, complaining that 
the savages took advantage of their small 
number to plunder their goods and other- 
wise maltreat them. While in Montreal 



*Parkman's Pioneers of France in the New 
World, p. 47. 



46 The 'Jesuits and Coureurs de Bo is. 

during the spring, the Indians fancied they 
had been ill-treated by some of the soldiers 
of the garrison, for which they sought 
revenge on the coureurs de hois residing 
among them. To succeed more effectually 
in their designs they, in imitation of the 
French, had formed a military guard of 
forty young men, under command of a 
captain. 

The priests held a council with the con- 
gregated tribes, and reprimanded them 
severely for their misdemeanors, telling the 
older chiefs that they, being wiser than the 
others, would be held accountable for the 
evil, which they must remedy, or incur the 
displeasure of the governor. As they dis- 
coursed to their naked auditors, Pere Dablon 
says their gravity was greatly put to the 
proof, for a guard of three native warriors, 
anxious to do them honor, marched up and 
down before the door of the lodge, aping 
the movements of the soldiers they had 
seen on guard before the governor's tent 
in Montreal. " We were almost overcome 
with laughter," he writes, " although we 
treated of solemn matters, the mysteries 
of our religion and the necessity of belief 
if they would escape from everlasting fire." 



The 'ycsuits and Coureurs dc Bois. 4g 

After remaining a few clays at the mis- 
sion, the Fathers continued on up the 
river, and Pere Dablon's journal of this 
voyage is the most valuable writing ex- 
tant upon tlie topography of the coun- 
try. Of the valley of the Fox he writes :* 
^' It has something of the beauty of a ter- 
restial paradise, but the road that leads 
to it is, also, in some manner like that 
Avhicli the Lord represents as the one to 
Heaven, for scarcely do we advance one 
day's journey up the river when we find 
three or four leagues of rapids to contend 
with, more difficult than those which are 
commonly in other rivers, in that the 
flints over which we must walk with our 
naked feet, to drag the canoe, are so sharp 
and so cutting that one has all the trouble 
in the world to hold oneself steady against 
the great rushing of the waters." At the 
Kakalin rapids they found an Indian idol, 
formed, " naturally, in the shape of a 
man's bust," and painted in brilliant 
colors. Under the priests' direction the 
engages lifted this up and cast it into the 
''depths of the river to appear no more," 



* Relations, 1670-71, pp. 41-50. 



^o The Jesuits a /id Coureurs de Bois. 

where it probably lies vet, although an- 
other soon after occupied its place. 

" After one has passed these rough and 
dangerous ways," continues Dablon, "as a 
recompense for the difficulties overcome, 
one enters into the most beautiful country 
that ever was seen ; prairies on all sides, as 
far as the e3^e can reach, divided by a 
river, which gently winds through them, 
and on which to float is perfect rest. 
Vines, plums, and apple trees are found 
in passing along, and seem to invite the 
traveler to disembark and taste their fruits, 
which are very sweet and in great quanti- 
ties. All the borders of this river, which 
flows tranquilly in the midst of these prai- 
ries, are covered with certain herbs, which 
bear what is here called the ' Avild oats,' of 
which the birds are wonderfully fond ; the 
quantity of all sorts of game, also, is so 
great everywhere about here, that, without 
much stopping, we killed it at discretion. '> 

After this journey Pere Dablon re- 
turned to Mackinac, and then went down 
to Quebec. Father Henri Nouvel was sent 
to take his place, while Louis Andre w^as 
ordered to the assistance of Allouez at La 
Bave. Allouez and Andre remained at 



The y^e suits mid Co ur curs de Bois. ^i 

the mission of St. Francis during the win- 
ter of 1670-71, and a small bark chapel 
and cabin were built at what was shortly 
after known as the Rapides des Peres. It 
was situated on the east bank of the river, 
about six miles from its mouth, and is 
described by an old settler of the country, 
who saw the foundations of the first 
church, which was built soon after on the 
same site, as being a little above the dam, 
and near the bank of the river.* 

Dablon writing in 1671-72, of the mis- 
sions lately established, speaks of " that of 
St. Francis Xavier, placed altogether, 
newly on the river which discharges it- 
self into the Baye of the Puants, two leagues 
from its mouth." He describes the spot 
as being ^' a prairie about four or five ar- 
pents wide, terminated at each side by a 
wood of lofty trees ; and besides, grapes, 
plums, apples and other fruits, which 
would be pretty good there, if the savages 
had the patience to let them ripen, 
there is also found in the prairies a 
species of lemon which has an affinity to 
those of France, but which has notliing of 
bitterness, not even in their rind ; the 

^Wis. Hist. CoUb., Vol. XI., p. 389. 



52 The Jesuits and Coiireurs de Bois. 

plant which bears them partakes of the 
fern.* The bear and the wild cat, which 
is as large as a dog of the middling 
height, fill the country, and as the woods 
there are very clear, we see large prairies 
in the forests, which render this rest- 
ing place agreeable. It is to these kinds 
of animals as well as the stag, that the 
chase is easily made ; as well in the 
woods, which are not thick, as on the 
river, into which he often throws himself 
and where one may take him without 
trouble. 

To all the advantages of this place, 
Ave may add, that it is the only and 
the great passage of the circumjacent 
nations who have a continual commerce 
among themselves, either in visiting or in 
traffic, and it is this which has caused us 
to cast our eyes on this spot, to erect here 
our chapel, as in the centre of more than 
ten different nations, who can furnish us 
with more than fifteen thousand souls to 
be instructed in the truths of Christianity. 
It is here the Father Claude Allouez and the 
Father Louis Andre have stopped to work 
for the salvation of all these people ; the one 

* Mandrake. 



The Jesuits and Cow'eurs de Bois. 5J 

applying himself to the nations who are 
more removed in the woods, and the 
other to those who are on the borders of 
the Lake of the Puans." Dablon also speaks 
of the fish weir at the Rapides des P^res, 
and of the Indians catching large quanti- 
ties of duck, wild fowl and fish in the nets 
described by Father Allouez, and adds : 
'' These two kinds of fishing draw to this 
place great numbers of savages from all 
parts." 

In the fall of the year 1671, there was 
erected at Sault St. Marie, the first church 
built in the west, and the savages at La 
Baye " murmured jealously" at this pref- 
erence shown the Indians of the Sault. 
Just three days before Christmas, 1672, 
Father Andre's little cabin was burned, 
and he lost his desk, all of his papers and 
many valuable articles. A temporary 
house and chapel were erected for him, by 
piling straw to the height of a man and 
roofing it with mats. Soon after, to ap- 
pease the Indians, a new and large 
church was commenced on the site of 
the burned chapel, which was not. however, 
completed until nea the close of 1673. 
It is spoken of by the Fathers as giving 



^4 The ye suits and Coureiirs de Bo is. 

great satisfaction to them and to the sav- 
ages, who were attracted to it from a great 
distance. The Indians apostrophized the 
building in their councils, and when 
passing threw tobacco about it, this being 
a form of worship they rendered their 
divinities. Within the palisaded enclo- 
sure of the mission were also erected 
dwellings, workshops and storehouses, 
for the traders made the station a ren- 
dezvous, and stored their furs there await- 
ing shipment to Montreal. 

Fathers Allouez and Andre labored at 
La Baye, with varying success for seven 
years. They found that the Indian mind 
was not a blank as it is sometimes repre- 
sented, but was a page upon which 
there was much to be erased, as well as 
written, for it was filled with prejudices 
and superstitions, to which they were 
firmly attached. The Sacs worshiped a 
deity called Missipisse, supposed to bring 
success in fishing ; while other tribes also 
had their deities, and the sin of poligamy 
was everywhere deeply rooted. 

Andre went from village to village, along 
the bay shore, praying with the women 
and girls in huts, close with the odor of 



The Jesuits and Coureiws de Bois. §^ 

drying fish, and so crowded that he could 
scarcely find place to put himself on his 
knees. For some years he struggled 
against the prejudices of the men, making 
little headway, until he resolved on attack- 
ing them through their children. He 
taught the little ones spiritual songs, which 
he set to gay little French airs, and ac- 
companied with his flute. Thus he went 
up and down the bay shore with his sav- 
age choir, " making war against the jug- 
glers, the dreamers, and those who had 
many wives, and, because the Indians 
passionately loved their children and 
would suffer everything from them, they 
allowed the reproaches, though biting, 
which were made to them by these songs." 
It was a hard life and a difficult field for 
these faithful servants of the Cross, but no 
complaint was uttered, even when during 
a temporary absence their cabin was set on 
fire by their enemies, and all their winter 
supply of food consumed. Small results 
were to be seen for all the self-sacrificing 
labor; many of the savages were willing, 
some even anxious, to be baptized, but the 
fathers hesitated to confer the sacred rite 
until the constancy of the candidate was 



^6 The Jesuits a?id Coiiretirs de Bois. 

tested, and refused it to those who would 
not abandon the vice of polygamy.* 

The priests of Loyola had planted the 
seed, and watered it with their tears 
and their blood : the fruit, if any, was for 
others to gather. 

^Shea's Catholic Church in Colonial Days, 
p. 639. 






CHAPTER III. 

Fort St. Francis and the Fox War. 

Jean Talon, intendant of New France in 
the year 1671, was a man of distinguished 
ability, far-seeing, far-reaching, and pa 
triotic, bent on extending the commercial 
interests of the French. His plan of gain- 
ing possession of New York for this pur- 
pose, either by treaty or conquest,* was a 
brilliant and apparently feasible one, but 
in the end came to naught through indif- 
ference or lack of understanding at court, 
and Talon was obliged to content himself 
in developing the interests near at hand, 
and occupying and controlling, as far as he 
could, the interior of the country. For 
the latter purpose he sent Daumont St. 
Lusson, in 1670, to search for copper on 
Lake Superior, and at the same time take 
formal possession of the Northwest. 
Nicholas Perrot, who was then in Canada, 
was selected to accompany him as inter- 
preter and envoy ; "no one," writes Charle- 

^Lettre de Talon ^ Colon, Oct. 27, 1667. 

57 



^8 Fort St. Francis and the Fox War. 

voix, "being better adapted for this im- 
portant duty." 

In the fall the expedition left Quebec, Per- 
rot going with it as far as Manitoulin Islands, 
where he left St. Lusson and pushed on to 
La Baye des Puants to extend an invita- 
tion to the tribes of that vicinity to meet the 
deputy of the French king at Sault Ste. 
Marie in the following spring. The clamor 
of welcome which greeted Perrot on his re- 
turn to La Baye, after an absence of only six 
months, was evidence of the affection in 
which he was held by the Indians. The 
Miamis gave a sham battle in his honor, 
which it is said required some nerve in a 
foreigner to witness undisturbed ; he was 
also entertained with a grand exhibition 
of la crosse, the Indian's national game 
of ball.* 

Perrot spent the winter at La Baye, 
and his success with the Indians was 
manifest in the spring, when he passed 
down the River St. Francis, with a large 
fleet of canoes, carrying representatives 
of the different tribes, eager to surrender 
their land to the French, that they might 

*La Potberie, also Parkmaii's Discovery of the 
Great West, p. 39. 



Fort St. Francis and the Fox War. ^<p 

secure the advantages of trade. The 
wary Foxes went only as far as the 
river's mouth and from there turned back 
into their own country. They were gov- 
erned in this move by sober second thought 
and an undiminished hatred of the 
French, Avhich, however, did not include 
Per rot, who, as long as he lived, held their 
devoted affection. As it paddled eastward, 
the party was increased in numbers by 
delegations from the Menominees, Potta- 
wattamies and other tribes dwelling on the 
shores and islands of the bav, and arrived 
at Mackinac on the fifth of May. On the 
fourteenth of June, St. Lusson, with impos- 
ing ceremonies, took possession of the land, 
^'bounded on one side by the seas of the 
north and of the west and on the other by 
the South Sea," in the name of the ''Most 
High, Mighty and Redoubted Monarch, 
Louis, Fourteenth of that name, Most 
Christian King of France and Navarre." 
His witnesses were the Jesuits Dablon, 
AUouez, Andre, and Dreuilletes, Perrot as 
interpreter, Joliet and a number of other 
coureurs de hois. 

Perrot and Joliet returned with St. Lus- 
son to Quebec, where they remained dur- 



6o Fort St. Fra?icis and the Fox War. 

ing the change which soon took place in 
the government. The intendant, Talon, 
and Courcelles, the governor, returned to 
France, each having asked for his recall 
because of differences that had arisen be- 
tween them. Count de Frontenac, the 
newly appointed governor, whom the in- 
habitants were soon to wish back in his 
own country, arrived in the early autumn 
of 1672. 

Frontenac was as ambitious to extend 
the boundaries of New France as any of his 
predecessors had been, and also desirous 
that the discovery of the ''great river" — 
known to the Indians as the Missipissi — 
should be made under his direction. For 
this purpose, as soon as navigation opened, 
he sent into the west, Joliet, who had been 
recommended to him by Talon. At St. 
Ignace, Joliet was joined by the Jesuit 
Jacques Marquette, who had been labor- 
ing for two years previous among the 
Huron refugees from St. Esprit, and a 
band of Ottawas who had joined them. 

Marquette was born in France in 1637, 
and became a Jesuit at about the age of sev- 
enteen ; at twenty-eight he was sent to 
the mission of Canada. His talent as a 



Fort St. Francis and the Fox War. 6i 

linguist must have been great, for within 
a few years he learned to speak with ease 
six Indian languages, Illinois being his 
last acquisition. He was of a deeply 
religious nature and a devout votary of 
the Virgin Mary, for whom he "burned to 
dare and to suffer, discover new lands and 
conquer new realms to her sway." Joliet, 
to whom should belong the honor of discov- 
eries made during the voyage, was a mer- 
chant, intelligent, well educated, courage- 
ous, hardy and enterprising, but without 
any distinctive trait of character or any es- 
pecial breadth of view or boldness of design. 
Marquette begins the journal of their 
voyage thus : " The day of the Immacu- 
late Conception of the Holy Virgin, whom 
I continually invoked, since I came to this 
country of the Ottawas to obtain from 
God the favor of being enabled to visit 
the nations of the river Missipissi. This 
very day was precisely that on which M. 
Joliet arrived with orders from Count 
Frontenac, our Governor, and M. Talon, 
our Intendant, to go with me on this dis- 
covery. I was all the more delighted at 
this good news, because I saw my plans 
about to be accomplished and found my- 



62 Fort St. Francis and the Fox War. 

self in the happy necessity of exposing 
my life for the salvation of all these 
tribes, and especially of the Illinois, who, 
when I was at Point St. Esprit, had begged 
me very earnestly to bring the Word of 
God among them." 

The outfit of the travelers was very 
simple. They provided themselves with 
two birch bark canoes ; a supply of smoked 
meat and Indian corn, and embarked with 
five men on the seventeenth of May to be- 
gin their journey, which Marquette writes 
he had placed under the protection of 
the Holy Virgin Immaculate, prom- 
ising, that if she granted them the fa- 
vor of discovering the great river, he 
would give it the name of Conception. 

They made the paddles ply merrily 
through the water as the two canoes sped 
towards the Baye des Puants, for it was 
the holiday time of the year ; along the 
shore maple and birch were bursting into 
leaf and all the world smiled with promise 
of coming summer. Minute observations 
were made of the country through which 
they passed and noted in the journal kept 
by Marquette. The bay he calls the Fetid, 
or Salt, and supposes it to have been so 



Fort St. Francis and the Fox War. 6j 

named from salt springs that might He 
along its shore, but having searched and 
found none, he says : "We conclude that 
the name came from the mud and slime 
to be found there, constantly exhaling noi- 
some vapors which cause the loudest, long- 
est peals of thunder I ever heard." 

To the problem that perplexed all early 
travelers, and which has not yet been satis- 
factorily solved, that of a regular tide plainly 
perceptible along the bay and river shore, 
Marquette gave interested attention, at- 
tributing it to lunar influence, although 
he adds : " I cannot deny that this move- 
ment may be caused by distant winds, 
which pressing on the centre of the lakes, 
makes the water rise and fall along the 
shore in the way it meets our eyes." Char- 
levoix, a distinguished French historian, 
writing on this subject fifty years later, 
supposes the phenomenon to be caused by 
subterranean springs at the bottom of the 
lakes, whose currents meet those of nu- 
merous rivers which flow into them and 
produce the movement noted. 

The travelers passed up the Fox River 
on their way to the Mississippi, undeterred 
by the stories of the Indians, who warned 



64 Fort St. Frajicis and the Fox War. 

tliem of the peril of their undertaking. 
By the end of September, they were again 
back at the Rapides des Peres, after an ab- 
sence of six months, during which time 
they had paddled their canoes somewhat 
more than two thousand miles. Mar- 
quette, broken in health and worn with the 
hard journey, yet happy in having planted 
the cross among the Illinois, was unable to 
travel farther, but Joliet went on to Quebec 
to tell of the good service done in tracing 
the Mississippi's course as far as the Arkan- 
sas, and opening a way for the establish- 
ment of French military and trading posts. 
After successfully escaping all the dangers 
of the long and perilous voyage, he was 
abandoned by fortune on the very threshold 
of home, losing all his papers by the over- 
turning of his canoe at La Chine Rapids. 
" Nothing remains to me but my life," he 
wrote to Frontenac, " and the ardent desire 
to employ it on any service which you 
may please to direct." 

Marquette remained at the mission- 
house of St. Francis, taking the rest that 
was a necessity and enjoying probabl}^ 
more of comfort and repose than had been 
possible during his many years of mission 



Fort St. Fi'ancis and the Fox War. 65 

work. Here, through the short winter days, 
when the river lay locked in ice, and drift- 
ing snow swirled around the lonely cabin, 
the young priest revised the desultory 
record kept from day to day while on his 
journey, and drew the map which accom- 
panies all printed editions of his journal. 
In the smoky half-twilight of the window- 
less lodge, brightened fitfully by blazing 
pine logs, he made a carefully- written 
copy of the journal at the request of his 
Superior, which he forwarded to Quebec. 
In October, 1674, he had so far recov- 
ered from his malady that on the twenty- 
fifth of the month he bade farewell to his 
brothers at St. Francis and started on his 
journey to revisit the Illinois, and to estab- 
lish in their principal town, a mission for 
which he had already selected the name 
of Immaculate Conception. His term of 
work, however, was almost over, his ill- 
ness returned and after a few months 
spent in the labor he loved, he turned his 
face northward hoping to end his life 
among friends at Michillimackinac, but 
death was nearer than he thought. On 
the bank of a small river that flows into 
Lake Michigan from the east, his two boat- 



66 Fort St. Francis and the Fox War. 

men erected a rude shelter of bark and 
there, "with a peacefulness that might be 
called a pleasant sleep," Marquette calmly 
passed away. 

Some time during the last of October^ 
1676, Pere Allouez, with the necessary 
number of engages, left La Baye to con- 
tinue the work begun by Marquette among 
the Illinois tribes. Before they had pad- 
dled many leagues down the bay, ice 
formed and closed navigation ; but, unde- 
terred by this obstacle, the resolute Father 
raised a sail in their light canoe, thus im- 
provising an ice-boat, the first to skim 
over the frozen surface of the bay. At 
Sturgeon Cove, as it was called, they crossed 
the difficult portage of a mile and an eighth, 
through tangled w^oods, to Lake Michigan, 
and made what haste they could to the 
Illinois country. There Father Allouez, 
who was the founder of Catholicity in the 
West, labored until he passed to his reward 
in August, 1689, in the seventy-sixth year 
of his age, having been for twenty years 
on the missions of Lakes Superior and 
Michigan. 

Allouez' departure from St. Francis 
Xavier left Pere Andre alone, but soon 



Fort St. Francis and the Fox War. dy 

after Fathers Silvey and Abanel were 
sent to his assistance. From this time on. 
little is known of the work of the mission- 
aries in this field, for the reports, if any 
were sent, are yet buried in the archives of 
France. The names of those who w^ere 
here are familiar through occasional men- 
tion — the aged Father Henri Nouvel, for 
more than forty years a laborer in the 
west, Fathers Enjalran, Silvey, Chardon 
and others, but of their special work, other 
than that it was faithfully rendered and 
generally successful, we know nothing. 

During the years which had passed, the 
traders had congregated more and more 
at La Baye, numbering amongst them 
names since famous in history and ro- 
mantic legend. There, in the autumn of 
1680, came the gay Du Lhut and his gos- 
sipy companion, the Recollect Friar, Hen- 
nepin, whom the coureur de hois had res- 
cued from the Sioux of the Upper Missis- 
sippi in a pitiable condition and taken 
under his powerful protection. For two 
years and a half Du Lhut and his follow- 
ers had been in exile waiting for the edicts 
against them to expire, and during that 
time had become as expert as Indians in 



68 Fort St. Francis and the Fox War. 

tracing a path through the dense forest 
sohtudes and along strange waterways. 
At night they were guided by the stars, 
and during the day the moss on the trees 
and the prairie plants, when the sun was 
hidden, showed them the points of the 
compass. When Father Hennepin met 
this band of outlaws'^he describes them as 
equipped half for war and half for trade, 
and when he enquired of their leader the 
day of the week, Du Lhut frankly acknowl- 
edged that he had ceased to reckon time. 
The garrulous priest relates how he and 
his protector paddled in company through 
the rocky gorges of the Wisconsin and 
then along the winding channel of the 
Fox River, where, after six hours' travel, 
the starting point was still in sight. 

When the Rapides des Peres were 
reached they were cordially welcomed by 
the priests at the mission, where they 
rested for several days, Du Lhut finding 
congenial company in the Canadians traf- 
ficking illegally with the Indians at the 
rapids, and Hennepin consolation in cele- 
brating mass. The father tells, in his 
journal, of the difficulties he overcame to 
accomplish this religous service, and, with 



Fort St. Francis and the Fox War. 6g 

characteristic egotism, writes as though he 
were the only priest in the wilds of the 
western forests, intentionally, it would seem, 
ignoring the Jesuits, whose guest he was. 

Two days after the departure of this 
party another arrived ; Henri de Tonti, 
lieutenant to La Salle and cousin of Du 
Lhut, fleeing before the wrath of the 
Iroquois from Fort Crevecoeur, on the Illi- 
nois, reached the rapids accompanied by 
Father Membre, on October second. The 
priest writes with enthusiasm of their 
reception and entertainment at the mission, 
where they remained during the winter. 
La Salle followed them later and was at La 
Baye for a time trading w^ith the Indians.* 
In 1683 the adventurous traveler La Sueur 
paid a short visit to the mission while 
on his way to the west over the familiar 
Fox- Wisconsin route. 

In the spring of 1681 amnesty was de- 
clared toward the coureurs de hois. The 
French authorities, finding it impossi- 
ble to keep the traders from the woods, 
agreed that annual licenses should be 

^Bancroft'^Hist. U. S., Vol. II., p. 337. 

Charlevoix' Hist, de la Nouvelle France, Vol. 

II., p. 277, '' poiirlui (La Salle) il alia passer une 

partie de 1' h}^ver a la Baye and n' arriva a' Que- 

oec qii' au printems de 1' aunee suivante 1683." 

G 



yo Fort St. Francis and the Fox War. 

granted to twenty-five canoes bearing three 
men each, but many more than the pre- 
scribed number were obtained — " God 
knows how," writes the irreverent Baron 
La Hontan. This Hvely young officer and 
reckless story-teller visited La Baye in 
1684. He patronizingly speaks of the Fox 
as a "little river, quite long ;" and in the 
book published on his return to France 
the hospitality of Green Bay, w^hich after- 
wards became famous, is first mentioned. 
A marvelous banquet was served by the 
Indians in the baron's honor, at which the 
guests were seated in oriental fashion on 
the green sward, under the lofty trees. Suc- 
cessively they partook of whitefish boiled 
in water, cutlets of the tongue of buck, 
followed by hazel hen — a fowl fattened on 
nuts — a bear's paw, and, greatest delicacy 
of all, the tail of a bear. Then came a 
bouillon prepared from a variety of meats, 
the whole washed down by what the baron 
calls a most delicious liquor, made of maple 
sugar, beaten up with water. 

This same year (1684), Nicholas Perrot, 
traveling the well-known route betAveen 
Montreal and the Baye des Puants, met at 
Michillimackinac, Du Lhut, who was re- 



Fort St. Frajicis and the Fox War. y i 

turning from an unsuccessful attempt to 
ally the western Indians with the French 
forces in a projected campaign against the 
Iroquois. Du Lhut urged Perrot to try his 
influence with the obdurate savages, and 
nothing loath, he consented. On the follow- 
ing Sunday, after hearing mass in the mis- 
sion church, Perrot set forth alone on this 
difficult task, bearing the tomahawk, sym- 
bol of war, and the presents wdiich in Du 
Lhut's hands had been rejected. 

From village to village he passed, calling 
on Menominees, Sacs, Puants, and Outaga- 
mies to make war with the French against 
their common enemy. They listened to 
him as they would have done to no other 
Frenchman, and at the appointed time 
M. Durantaye, commandant at Mackinac, 
found himself at the head of five hundred 
warriors, among whom were the perverse 
and arrogant Foxes. It had required all 
Perrot's diplomacy to induce these last to 
join the expedition, and more than once 
during the journey they turned back, 
daunted by fancied omens of evil ; but 
Perrot urged them on, overcoming their 
superstitions by pretended scorn of their 
cowardice. The campaign came to noth- 



y 2 Fort St. Francis and the Fox War. 

ing, a peace having been patched up by the 
French before the arrival of the alHes at 
the rendezvous. The French, with their 
frequently-mistaken policy in dealing with 
the savages, furnished the meagre gift of 
eleven pounds of tobacco, valued at eight 
francs a pound, as compensation for their 
services, with which it taxed all Perrot's 
diplomacy to content his savage confed- 
erates. 

About this time the Sieur de la Salle, 
claiming La Baye as within his grant 
of Louisiana, issued an order forbid- 
ding all traders not bearing a com- 
mission from him, to go by way of the 
Fox River, and giving the Indians 
permission to pillage or even murder all 
who should attempt it. "If the king has 
given to M. de la Salle alone this country, 
have the goodness to let me know and I 
will conform myself to the orders of his 
majesty," writes Denonville in wrath, to 
the French government. It was a danger- 
ous power to place in savage hands, and 
fierce and bloody quarrels almost im- 
mediately ensued between the Indians and 
the coureurs de hois. 

In the spring of 1685, Perrot was 



Fort St. Fra?tcis and the Foxl War. 7 ? 



/ j> 



sent to La Baye to placate these unruly 
factions, having been appointed chief 
in command by De la Barre, Avho 
had recently succeeded Frontenac as 
governor of New France. "I was sent to 
La Baye," he writes, " with a commission to 
command there, and in the most distant 
countries of the west, also in all that I 
might discover." The confidence felt by 
the government in Perrot's power and 
ability to control the Indians, is nowhere 
better shown than in this commission, 
which appointed him, with only a small 
detachment of twenty men, to hold in check 
thousands of blood-thirsty savages licensed 
to commit pillage and even murder. 
Perrot found at St. Francis, Father 
John Enjalran, the only priest west of 
Lake Michigan. The bark-covered lodge 
of the mission station became his 
headquarters, and there he stored the 
furs which he secured from the natives. 
The chiefs of the various tribes were as 
anxious to propitiate this solitary repre- 
sentative of greatness as though he were 
the great Ononthio* himself ; they brought 
him rich gifts of the skins of bear and other 
■^Indian name for the governor of Canada. 



/;» ,' 



y4 F'ort St. Francis and the Fox War 



animals, and smoked with him the pipe of 
peace around his council fire. 

Scarcely was he well established in his 
post before he received an order to lead a 
second expedition against the Iroquois, wdio 
were again on the war path. There re- 
mains a rare and valuable relic of this 

period of Perrot's 
government at La 
Baye, in the form 
of a hand-wrought 
silver soleil or os- 
tensorium,made to 
contain the sacred 
wafer, andpresent- 
ed by him to the 
Mission of St. 
Francis Xavier.* 

The two centur- 
ies that have elaps- 
ed, and the strange 
fortunes w h i c h 
have befallen the 
sacred memorial 
have not obliterat- 
ed the inscription cut in rude letters around 
the base : 

'' Ce soleil a este donne par 31. Nicolas Perrot d la 
7nission de St. Francis Xavier en la Baye des Puants, 
1686:' 




*La Potherie. 



Fort St. Francis and the Fox War. 75 

In 1802 the soleil was plowed up at De 
Pere on the site of the ancient mission- 
house.* It had probably been buried 
in 1687 to preserve it at a time when the 
tribes were hostile and had been either 
forgotten by the priests in their hasty flight 
or they were unable afterwards to recover 
it. To-day it is placed among the most 
valued relics of the State Historical So- 
ciety at Madison. In that year — 1687 — the 
Foxes, Kickapoos, and Mascoutins formed a 
conspiracy to pillage and burn the French 
establishment at La Baye, and thus pro- 
vide themselves with guns and other mu- 
nitions of war.f The new church, mis- 










^ 



OR CD ^ X e rJ ^ *-^ 



*Thwaites's Story of Wisconsin, p. 77. 
tHebbard's Wisconsin under French Domin- 
ion, p. 62. 



yd Fort St. Francis and the Fox War. 

sion-house and all the buildings of the 
establishment were burned and everything 
valuable either carried off or destroyed. 
There is no record of the church having 
been rebuilt, and the mission of St. Francis 
Xavier, from that time until its final 
abandonment, was a roving one. 

Perrot was the chief individual sufferer 
in the fire, his loss in furs stored at the mis- 
sion being valued at 40,000 livres,* a fortune 
in those days. With the usual generosity 
of the French government to those who 
labored in the west, Perrot w^as allowed to 
find reward for his services in trade, 
and this loss represented the accu- 
mulation of over two years which he had 
been prevented from sending to Montreal 
because of the Iroquois wars. 

Three years later, on the ninth of May, 
1689, Perrot, " commandant of the west,'^ 
took formal possession, in the name of the 
king, of a wider domain than France had 
yet controlled. This included all the 
country drained by the Rivers St. Peter, and 
the upper Mississippi, and at convenient 
intervals he established strong stockaded 
posts for the purpose of trade. In 1 690, after 

*La Potberie, II. 



Fort St. Francis and the Fox War. 77 

the outbreak of King William's war, when 
not a French garrisqn remained between 
Three Rivers and Michillimackinac,Perrot, 
through his influence with the Indians, 
was able to prevent a general massacre of 
the French at that post and at La 
Baye. Even the English governor of 
New York, Cadwallader Golden, who is 
chary of praise to any Frenchman, accords 
this honor to Perrot, who, he says, with 
wonderful sagacity, and hazard to his own 
person, diverted the savages from their 
purpose.* 

In 1699 the King issued an order which 
revoked all license to trade with the 
Indians, and recalled the traders and sol- 
diers to Quebec. Thus Perrot was shut 
out from the employment of a lifetime. 
Broken by his hard life and adverse for- 
tune, no longer able to conduct treaties 
nor lead to Avar his savage allies, he re- 
turned to his home in Canada, where he 
remained, neglected by the government 
he had so ably served, condemned to a life 
of inactivity and poverty. He was not 
forgotten, however, by the tribes among 
whom so many active years of his life had 

^Colden's History of the Five Nations. 



y8 Fort St. Francis and the Fox War. 

been passed ; the chief of the Pottawatta- 
mies declared him to be the greatest of all 
the Frenchmen who had been among 
them,* and the Foxes complained bitterly 
at his removal. "We have no more sense 
since he has left us," they exclaimed while 
asking for his return, f but their entreaties 
were only met with vague promises, which 
came to naught and Ferrot never again 
saw the fair river of the Outagamie, nor 
the grassy slopes of La Baye. 

The war waged in Europe during the 
last years of the seventeenth century 
was disastrously felt on the North Amer- 
ican continent. Several successful expe- 
ditions had been conducted by the French 
with their Indian allies against the north- 
ern colonies, by which they gained an in- 
crease of territor}^ but the w^eakness of 
their garrisons at Forts Frontenac and 
Mackinac enabled the English traders 
to penetrate as far as Lake Michigan and 
secure a large share of the commerce of the 
lakes. Personal enterprise took the direc- 
tion of the western fur trade, and the busi- 
ness for a time declined ; the church also be- 



* La Potherie, Vol. IV., p. 213. 
t Tail hail' 8 Perrot, p. 267. 



Fort St. Francis and the Fox War. yg 

came seriously affected. At Michillimacki- 
nac in 1705, the fathers found themselves 
without a flock, and rather than have the 
church profaned they set fire to the huild- 
ing, abandoned the mission and returned 
to Quebec; for nearly twenty years the 
mission of St. Francis Xavier was the only 
one on the lakes. 

The peace of Ryswick (1697) occa- 
sioned a suspension of hostilities ; and 
France, through it regained all the places 
in America of which she was in posses- 
sion at the beginning of the war. This 
was followed by the ratification of a peace 
with the Five Nations, by which England 
shared in the trade of the west, but 
France kept the mastery of the great 
lakes. To secure the rich Mississippi 
valley, the French established a post at 
the mouth of Fox River in the year 
1721.* 

This is the first authentic record of a 
garrisoned post at this point, but there is 
good reason to suppose that one was lo- 
cated here at a much earlier period ; it 
might be even in 1671. In that year. 



* Charlevoix, Hist, de la Noiivelle France, Vol. 
v., p. 432. 



8o Fort St. Francis and the Fox War. 

when Louis XIV., through his representa- 
tive, raised the French standard over the 
northwest, and Green Bay became a part 
of the Province of New France, a fort 
was built at Mackinac, and the theory 
has been advanced by some historians 
that at the same time one was estabhshed 
at the head waters of La Baye Verte. 
There is only presumptive evidence in 
favor of this, yet it seems of sufficient im- 
portance to give it credence. 

Lake Superior, for two years previ- 
ous to 1671, had been prohibited to 
the French through Indian wars, and 
the missionaries were obliged to abandon 
the station at La Pointe. This closed 
one of the popular wa^^s into the in- 
terior. A like trouble might easily cut 
off the French from the Fox- Wisconsin 
route, therefore it appears natural that 
the French, ever alive to the advantages 
of trade, should garrison this point, the 
entrance to the valley of the Mississippi. 
If a fort was established at this date it did 
not remain long, for it is said that when 
Tonti spent the winter of 1680 at the 
mission of St Francis he built a fort, 



Fort St. Fra7icis a?id the Fox War. 8 1 

which was later commanded by Du Lhut. * 
This, however, there is reason to beheve, 
was only the usual stockaded trading sta- 
tion for the protection of peltries and was 
probably located at the Rapides des Peres. 
Sometime later a fort was undoubtedly 
erected near the site afterward occupied 
by Fort Howard, but by whom it was 
built or at what date, is not knowai. 

In 1721, when Charlevoix came to La 
Baye with the French commandant, M de 
Montigny, who with a detachment of sol- 
diers, had been ordered to this point, they 
found a fort on the west bank of the river, 
half a league from its mouth. It contained 
quarters for officers and men, with a pa- 
rade ground, the whole surrounded by a 
stockade of one or more rows of straight 
oak palisades. Just outside rose the 
bark wigwams of a Winnebago village, 
farther down on the same side of the river 
dwelt the Sacs, while not far off was a 
settlement of Foxes. Laboring among these 
tribes was Father Chardon, whose home was 
with the Winnebagoes. 

It was near the close of a hot July day, 
that the boat bearing these distinguished 

* American State Papers, Vol. IV., p. 851. 



82 Fort St. Francis and the Fox War. 

travelers was paddled up Fox River. Its 
approach was discovered by the Indians 
before it neared the landing-place and 
received with exhibitions of wild joy. 
Wading out into the stream until the water 
reached their waists, they presented the 
new commandant with a mantle made of 
fine deer skins, wrapped in which they 
bore him on their shoulders to his quarters, 
where, after the usual exchange of compli- 
ments, they left him for a short period 
of rest. On the next afternoon, on the level 
ground inside the fort, the Winnebagoes 
and the Sacs, one following the other, en- 
tertained the strangers with a dance, in 
which only the young warriors took part, 
rehearsing their deeds of prowess and valor. 
With faces painted in various colors, and 
heads adorned with nodding plumes, hold- 
ing bunches of feathers which they waved 
aloft, " they presented an imposing appear- 
ance, especially the Winnebagoes, who were 
more agile and better formed than the 
Sauks." The Calumet, the great pipe of 
peace, also adorned in brilliant hues, 
occupied a conspicuous place, the savages 
circling about it.* 

*Cliarlevoix, Hist, de la Xonvelle France, Vol. 
v., p. ^M. 



Fo7't St. Francis a fid the Fox Wat'. 83 

This introduction to Fort St. Francis, as 
it had been named, presents a pleasing 
picture with the little cantonment lying 
peaceful and bright under the slowly setting 
July sun. The Indians standing, squatting, 
or stretched at length on the ground, 
formed a circle about the cleared open 
place, the men on one side, the women on 
the other, the blankets secured from the 
traders giving brilliant touches of color. 
Monsieur Montigny, leaning against the 
door of his lodge, watched the dancing, 
while not far off Avere Fathers Chardon and 
Charlevoix, and opposite to them the 
soldiers of the garrison. All looked on with 
unabated interest as the young dancers, 
lithe and symmetrical, their naked bodies 
hardened and dark, glistening with oil of 
sunflower, recounted, in graphic panto- 
mime, their famous deeds of w^ar. 

Isolated stood the small garrison, at 
the mercy of the savage hordes within 
its gates while the Sacs and treach- 
erous Winnebagoes danced in apparent 
amity before the commandant. Yet even 
then a part of the Sac tribe was joined 
with the Foxes against the French, and 
the account of the Fox wars form one of 



S4 Fort St. Francis and the Fox War. 

the saddest chapters of Wisconsin history, 
the story of which may be briefi}^ told. 

The Foxes from the first had looked with 
jealous dissatisfaction on the inroads of the 
French into the western country. Even 
while the Winnebagoes, Menominees, Pot- 
tawattamies and other tribes had welcomed 
the advantages of trade, they, with sullen 
discontent, had harrassed and pillaged the 
foreigners as opportunity occurred. In 1712 
they had attempted the destruction of the 
fort at Detroit. Enraged at their failure 
and heavy loss, they collected their scat- 
tered bands on Fox River, which was their 
natural country, and for which they 
showed to the last an enduring affection. 
With increased hatred toward the French 
they exacted a tribute from all traders 
passing up and down the river in their 
richly-laden canoes, until commerce was 
nearly destroyed. In 1716 Lieut, de Lou- 
vigny headed an expedition against them 
in which eight hundred savages joined. 
They were attacked at their principal vil- 
lage, which was some thirty-seven miles 
above the mouth of the river, where, in a 
rude fort, surrounded by a triple row of 
oak stakes, more than five hundred war- 



Fort St. Francis ami the Fox War. 8 ^ 

riors and three thousand women and chil- 
dren had fled for protection. Here M. de 
Louvigny attacked them, and on the third 
day of the siege, while he was preparing 
to undermine their works, the Foxes, fail- 
ing a reinforcement of three hundred In- 
dians hourly expected, surrendered. The 
terms of capitulation, granted in honor of 
their unexampled bravery, were unusually 
mild in savage warfare ; the Foxes agreeing 
to make peace with all tribes friendly to 
the French, and war on other tribes that 
they might secure slaves who should sup- 
ply the place of those they had killed 
among the allies of the French, and pay 
the expenses of the war from the chase — 
pledges which were never fulfilled.* 

For a time there was peace in the valley 
of the Fox, but when Montigny took pos- 
session of the fort, low mutterings of seri- 
ous trouble were again heard. On June 
7th, 1726, Sieur Marchand de Lignery, 
representing the governor of Canada, held 
a council at La Baye, called to promote 
peace among the nations, at which were 
present representatives of the Fox, Sac and 

*Parkmaii's, A Half-Century of Dishonor, Vol. 
I., pp. 321 et mj. 

7 



86 Fort St. Francis a?id the Fox War. 

Winnebago tribes. After a prolonged dis- 
cussion in the presence of Messrs. D'Ama- 
riton, Cligancourt, and Rev. Father Char- 
don, the chiefs of the three nations 
pledged their tribes to maintain peace 
with each other and with the French. 
But the Foxes were soon pillaging and 
murdering as before, and in 1728 had be- 
come so troublesome that another effort 
was made to drive them out of the country. 
This second expedition, under the com- 
mand of Sieur de Lignery, composed of 
four hundred French and eight or nine 
hundred Indians, paddled up Fox River on 
the night of August 17th. Notwithstand- 
ing precautions taken to conceal their ar- 
rival, the Foxes were apprised of it and all 
excepting four old men and women man- 
aged to escape. These were given over to 
the Indians, with the French, who, after tor- 
turing,shot them to death with their arrows. 
Before the return of the army the Fox vil- 
lages from the Portage to the mouth of Fox 
River were burned. "They destroyed all 
that they could find in the fields, Indian 
corn, peas, beans and gourds, of which the 
savages had great abundance."* 

*Cri8pel, Elxpedition Against the Foxes. Wis. 
Hist. Colls., Vol. X., p. 50. 



Fort St. Francis and the Fox War. Sy 

This, it was anticipated, would inflict ter- 
rible suffering, and as a result half of the 
tribe, numbering four thousand souls, 
would die of hunger before spring, and the 
balance come to the French asking mercy. 
Subsequent events proved the fallacy of 
such expectations, for the Foxes were not 
so easily subdued. De Lignery, on his 
his return, stopped at Green Bay long 
enough to destroy Fort St. Francis, assign- 
ing as a reason, that the garrison was not 
sufficient to hold it against the Foxes, 
should they attempt its capture, an excuse 
not unquestioningly received by his su- 
periors. Father Chardon, the last Jesuit 
priest to minister on these shores, was 
forced to leave with the troops, it not being 
safe, in the unsettled state of the Indians, 
for him to remain without military protec- 
tion, and the country was left without a 
religious instructor. 

The Foxes, '• passionate and untamable, 
springing into new life from every defeat, 
and, though reduced in the number of 
their warriors, yet present everywhere by 
their ferocious enterprise and savage 
character," were soon gathered again on 
the banks of the Fox River, exacting, 



88 Fort St. Francis and the Fox War. 

as before, tribute from the traders, until 
a total cessation of trade was likely to 
ensue. The Sieur Pierriere Marin, a 
French trader of energetic character, is 
said to have been the next to take arms 
against this formidable enemy. His boats, 
heavily laden with valuable peltries, 
were frequently subjected to exorbitant 
tax, until, so the story runs, he determined 
to drive the Foxes, once for all, from their 
position on Fox River. 

Raising a volunteer force at Mackinac 
he brought them to the vicinity of Fort St. 
Francis, in the large flat bottomed boats, 
pointed at each end, commonly used by 
traders of that day, and there rested for the 
night. On the following morning, a boat 
loaded with merchandise and a double 
quantity of brandy was sent up the river 
with instructions to allow it to be plun- 
dered without resistance. The next day 
Captain Marin, having been reinforced by 
Indians hostile to the Foxes, passed up 
the river. A mile or so below the Fox 
village he landed a part of his small army 
with orders to gain the woods in the rear 
of the village, and wait for the sound of firing 
from the front before making an attack. 



Fort St. Fra?icis and the Fox War. 8g 

A bend in the river concealed the boats, 
while the soldiers remaining were covered 
down by the painted cani^as, carried by 
traders to protect their goods during in- 
clement weather. Two soldiers in each boat, 
disguised as voyageurs, and singing a merry 
boat song, then rowed the fleet towards the 
village. Fifteen hundred Indians, stagger- 
ing and wild with the liquor taken from the 
bateau sent up the day before, rushed to the 
shore. Firing just athwart the bow of the 
foremost boat, according to custom, they 
commanded the flotilla to come to land. 
The boats were rowed near the shore, when 
at a given signal, coverings were thrown off 
and a volley of hot lead fired at the unsus- 
pecting savages, who with wild yells fled 
in dismay to the A^illage. The flanking 
party had entered from the rear and hav- 
ing set fire to the frail bark cabins met 
the fleeing savages with a storm of bullets. 
Hemmed in on all sides, the Foxes fought 
desperately amidst their burning cabins 
to cut their way through ; some succeeded, 
the rest were cut down, no quarter was 
given ; all was over in a few minutes, 
and the populous village but a heap 
of ashes. One thousand Indians are said 



go Fort St. Francis and the Fox War. 

to have fallen in this sanguinary encoun- 
ter, and from that day until the present 
the field of this famous battle has been 
known as Little Butte des Morts — Hillock 
of the Dead. 

The remnant of the Foxes, clinging 
with the tenacity of despair to their cher- 
ished hunting grounds, settled again on 
the river, but nearer Lake Winnebago, 
where they continued to harrass the French. 
Routed by Marin from this position, they 
rested for a time on the banks of the 
Wisconsin, but Sieur Marin, unwilling 
they should remain where they could still 
obstruct the thoroughfare, surpi'ised the 
village, killing twenty warriors and tak- 
ing all others, including women and 
children, prisoners. Having fully con- 
quered the Foxes, Marin gave those re- 
maining their freedom, but required them 
to retire beyond the Mississippi, which 
they did somewhere about the year 1746.* 

For thirty years this war had been car- 
ried on in what is now Wisconsin wdth a 
bitterness rarely equalled. The Indians 
had been routed and driven away again 

^Tbe report of this raid of Marin's against 
the Foxes, though often repea^ted, is based only 
on Indian tradition. 



Fort St. Francis and the Fox War. gi 

and again, only to return at the first op- 
portunity to the banks of their sacred river, 
until in the end the resistless force of the 
invader conquered and they were thrust 
out forever. 






CHAPTER IV. 

Charles de Langlade, First Permanent Set- 
tler and Military Hero. 

All initiative ventures have in them 
something heroic, and the man who hews 
the timber for the first cabin of an embryo 
city carves for himself a lasting monu- 
ment, which after long years, perhaps, the 
hand of history unveils. 

When Augustin de Langlade and his 
son, Charles Michel, first permanent set- 
tlers of Wisconsin, came to La Baye Verte, 
the country was almost as wild and solitar}^ 
as it had been a century before. No 
priest had held religious service there- 
abouts for many years, the mission chapel 
at Rapides des Peres had been destroyed by 
fire ; and the little fort contained only a 
handful of men, who, too weak in num- 
bers for a defense against any hostile at- 
tack, served merely to remind the sur- 
rounding redskins that the great Onon- 
thio kept a watchful eye over his adopted 
children. 



92 



Charles de Langlade. gj 

Either sent by tlie French Government 
to look after the Indians of this qnarter, or 
invited by the latter for purposes of trade, 
or having themselves heard of this point 
as a desirable one for establishing a depot 
of supplies, the two De Langlades, about 
the year 1745, came to La Baye. At first 
their establishment was a limited one, 
and their residence of a temporary nature ; 
for they could not break at once with the 
comfort and associates of Michillimackinac, 
long their home, and were constantly go- 
ing back and forth, their names mean- 
while remaining on the Mackinac records 
as residents of that place. It was there that 
Augustin de Langlade, a Canadian of 
French parentage, had married the sister of 
Nissowaquet, head chief of the Ottawa Na- 
tion; there, in 1729, Charles was born and 
passed his early years, receiving his mental 
development from the Jesuit, Pere Du 
Jauny, who figures largely in the annals of 
that place and time ; while his physical 
training in all out-door sports, and initia- 
tion into the science of border warfare, came 
from his Indian kinsmen, who were not 
a little proud of this young athlete and in- 
cipient warrior. 



g^ Charles de Langlade. 

His military career began at an early 
age ; for he was only in his eleventh year 
when his uncle, Nissowaquet, leading a war 
party against a hostile tribe, was seized by 
the superstitious fancy that unless young 
Charles accompanied the expedition it 
would end in disaster. So the boy was al- 
lowed to go, and just before the on- 
slaught was placed with some other lads 
at a safe distance, but in full view of the 
combatants. This attack being success- 
ful, the young mascot ever after took the 
trail with his elders when a campaign was 
on foot. 

The reputation for courage so early es- 
tablished, was of great service in the 
pioneer venture at La Baye ; for though 
the Indians of the surrounding country 
were almost uniformly friendly, yet there 
was occasionally a disposition shown to 
molest the property of the new settlers. 
Sometimes a strolling band from the Me- 
nominee River, in the hope of extracting 
presents, would threaten to take b}^ force 
goods from the storehouse ; but an intima- 
tion from Charles that he would cross the 
river and settle the matter with them in 
fair fight on the prairie was sufficient to 



Charles de La?iglade. 95 

drive off' these marauders, who did not 
care to risk an encounter with so redoubta- 
ble an adversary. 

The first dvvelHng and storehouse of 
the settlement was erected on the east side 
of the river, and so near its brink that 
when the north wind blew, the water crept 
up to the doorway ; but it was a conveni- 
ent landing-place for the loaded canoes, 
whose valuable cargoes were easily trans- 
ferred to safe-keeping in the substantial 
log building, while the Indians came and 
went at will ; for in these frontier dwell- 
ings the door was always open to guests, 
were they dark-skinned or white.* 

A few families, connections for the most 
part of the De Langlades, one by one mi- 
grated to La Baye, where the monotony 
of existence was varied by an occasional 
event of tragic interest. Such was the 
murder of Captain de Villiers, command- 
ant at Fort St. Francis, in 1746. It was 
the year of final conflict with the Foxes. 
The Sacs, close allies of the refractory 
tribe, had yet demeaned themselves 



*The dwelling stood on the spot now occu- 
pied by a brick house, formerly the residence 
of Mrs. H. O. Crane. 



(p6 Charles de Langlade. 

thus far in a friendly manner toward the 
whites. Their stockaded village stood 
opposite the fort on the sandy lowland 
where is now the business center of Green 
Bay, and here they had harbored a num- 
ber of Fox fugitives, who because of kin- 
ship through intermarriages between the 
tribes, or from friendly feeling, they con- 
sidered themselves bound to protect. 

An order was issued by De Villiers that 
these Foxes should be delivered up, which 
was willingly complied with by their al- 
lies. Only one boy, protege of an old 
crone, remained, and over him discussion 
and argument were exhausted in vain; the 
foster mother could not be induced to 
part with her child. De Villiers had 
little patience to bear- with the slow 
and tedious processes of Indian negotia- 
tion, and one night affer a roystering 
supper given in honor of a brother officer, 
he was paddled over to the cluster of 
tepees across the river where a council was 
in session. Here he peremptorily de- 
manded possession of the lad, and upon 
being put off with the usual excuses, be- 
came infuriated, raised the gun that he 
carried, and firing right and left killed 



Charles de Langlade. gy 

three of the assembled chiefs. A young 
Indian, outraged at this unprovoked 
bloodshed, ran for a gun and shot the 
reckless officer through the heart. 

This murder, although quite justifiable, 
was amply avenged on the unfortunate 
Sacs. Military were sent on to rein- 
force the garrison, which, joined by the 
Canadian settlers under Charles de Lang- 
lade, attacked the village ; after a sharp 
fight, the latter was destroyed, and its oc- 
cupants driven in search of new camping 
grounds to the westward. 

As years went by the De Langlades 
grew strong in influence with the tribes 
about La Baye, Charles especially becom- 
ing chief counselor and arbitrator ; yet the 
cares of trade must have devolved princi- 
pally upon the senior De Langlade, who, 
after the manner of traders, passed the 
summer months in Michillimackinac, re- 
moving with his family to the trading 
post when approaching winter brought 
around the bus}^ season of traffic. The 
younger man was early called to play a 
role of wider interest than the barter of 
furs, or the settling of squabbles in Indian 
wigwams. 



(^8 Charles de Langlade. 

At this time the Indian trade was by no 
means as intricate as it afterward became ; 
peltries were plenty, and the traders, com- 
paratively few in number, realized large 
profits on the coarse stroud blankets, fire- 
arms, and gew-gaws coveted by their 
Indian customers. Apart from the private 
trafhc carried on by licensed traders, large 
dealings were held with the Indians by the 
French government through the fort, and 
in 1754, thirteen canoes of goods, valued at 
$18,000, were quoted as annually required 
for the Indian trade of this department. It 
is said that although the fort commandant 
shared the profits of his lucrative post 
with the governor and intendant of 
New France, his dividend amounted 
annually to 15,000 francs.* The entire 
garrison of Fort St. Francis consisted of 
six men, a sergeant, and four privates 
under command of the Sieur Marin, who 
was a son of the Marin of Fox war fame, 
and continued at this post for three years, f 

In 1752 came the decisive outbreak of 
hostilities between the French and English, 

■^Turner's ''Character and Influenceof the Fur 
Trade in Wisconsin." 

fWis. Hist. Colls., Vol. v., pp. 116-17; Vol.X., 
p. 304. 



Charles de Langlade. gg 

which, pursued with intermittent activity 
during the eight years following, resulted 
at last in the fall of New France. As yet 
neither side w^as committed to an open 
declaration of war. Commissioners, ap- 
pointed at the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, 
still met in session at Paris in futile en- 
deavor to settle the limits of Acadia and 
lines of demarcation between the rival 
colonies. But while ostensibly preserving 
amicable relations, the two great powers 
were secretly conniving at a series of border 
raids, and the active preparation for attack 
and defense, ominous precursors of the 
coming storm.* 

At the beginning of these troubles, 
young De Langlade was ordered by the 
French government to lead a large party 
of Ottawas and Ojibways against an In- 
dian town in Ohio, where English traders 
had for some time been endeavoring, 
quite successfully, to undermine French 
influence with the savages. This seems to 
have been rather an inglorious fight, it 
being the hunting season and the town 
but poorly protected by a handful of war- 
riors, so that victory for the attacking 

■^Parkman's ''Montcalm and Wolfe." 



lOO Charles de Langlade. 

party was inevitable. A more notable 
service was in the campaign three years 
later (1755) against the forces of General 
Braddock, in which De Langlade took an 
important part. 

His orders were to collect the Indians of 
the lake region, and conduct them to 
Fort Duquesne, then menaced by the 
British. It is probable that the entire 
Indian force was under De Langlade's 
command, for there were with him Pot- 
tawattamies, Ottawas, Chippeways, Meno- 
minies, Winnebagoes, and Hurons, tribes 
often at variance with each other, yet will- 
ing to make common cause under the 
guidance of this brave young leader. 

The surprise of Braddock's army at the 
Monongahela ; the swift descent of In- 
dians and French upon the camp ; the 
total rout of the British forces, and death 
of their general, are matters of history, 
but it was to De Langlade's inspiring in- 
fluence that the victory over a greatly su- 
perior force was due. He it was, who, 
knowing that in such an attack the Cana- 
dians and Indian allies could be used to 
infinite advantage, persuaded his captain, 
Beaujeu, to order an advance, that made 



Charles de Langlade . lOT 

havoc among the well-clisciphned troops 
of the enemy. 

Braddock's army had encamped for 
dinner and was quietly enjoying rest 
after the toilsome march, when, wdth the 
terrible war-whoop, so appalling to civilized 
■ears, the savage horde came upon them. 
At once the camp w^as placed in an atti- 
tude of defense, but the assailants sur- 
rounded it on all sides, and, stationed on 
rising ground, where a thick growth of 
trees and bushes gave perfect concealment, 
poured a deadly fire into the platoons of 
bewildered soldiery, who knew not where 
to charge their enemy, and after a spirited 
resistance retired in confusion. On the 
battlefield were left six hundred dead,while 
many more were killed in the retreat, or 
drowned in the stream whither they were 
driven by their pursuers. The French 
loss was estimated at about thirty all 
told. De Langlade, after the engagement, 
in order to prevent his savages from 
becoming unmanageable, ordered all 
liquor found in the enemy's stores to be 
poured out on the ground, but French and 
redskins were allowed to plunder the slain. 

After this expedition De Langlade re- 



I02 Charles de La/i^lade 



cS' 



turned to La Baye, but soon again enlisted 
in the service at Fort Duquesne. Two 
years later (1757), he conducted a force of 
several hundred red men down the lakes, 
probably to join Lieutenant Marin, who 
had preceded him with sixty Indians 
in July, and take part in an attack on 
Fort William Henry. Fully seventeen 
hundred w^arriors assembled to lend their 
cruel and capricious aid in the capture of 
this ill-fated fortress, and great diplomacy- 
was essential in restraining and keeping 
together so undisciplined a command un- 
der their enforced idleness, Avhile prepa- 
rations for the siege were completing.* 
Montcalm, general-in-chief of the French 
forces, Avho had little fondness for such 
barbarous reinforcements, while he recog- 
nized the necessity of employing them, 
writes in July, 1757: "Last month a 
thousand savages arrived from the upper 
country, many of whom came four or five 
hundred leagues. It is no small task to 
make the sojourn of troops like these 
profitable." 

After the successful issue of the siege,, 
Vaudreuil, governor general of New 

^Parkman's ''Montcalm and Wolfe." 



Charles de Langlade. loj 

France, as a compensation for good serv- 
ice, appointed De Langlade second in 
command of the fort at Michillimackinac, 
where he did not, however, long remain 
inactive, for in 1758 he again took the field, 
being this time employed near Fort Du- 
quesne. 

The long struggle was at last drawing 
to a close. France, deeply involved in 
the European w^ar then raging, gave but 
half-hearted assistance to her North Amer- 
ican colonies. While a hundred thousand 
French soldiers marched with the Austrian 
army against Frederick of Prussia, only a 
few battalions were grudgingly sent across 
the water to unite with a host of Cana- 
dian recruits, patriotic indeed, and useful 
in ambuscade or as bushrangers, but know- 
ing little or nothing of the tactics of war. 

England, on the other hand, sent out a 
well-equipped army of many thousand 
men, and joined to these was a large force 
of sturdy, resolute colonists, fully deter- 
mined to be rid of an enemy from whose 
depredations their border settlers had suf- 
fered much, and who effectually barred 
the widening of their boundaries toward 
the fertile and attractive West. 



104 Charles de Langlade. 

One by one the French forts south of 
the St. Lawrence had been forced to sur- 
render, until, in 1759, but one remained, 
Ticonderoga, at the head of Lake George, 
thoroughly fortified, but in constant dan- 
ger of attack from a strong force under 
General Amherst. Acadia had been lost 
in the preceding year through the capture 
of Louisbourg by General Wolfe, and in 
June, 1759, the same indomitable com- 
mander, with nine thousand men, twenty- 
two ships of the line, frigates, sloops-of- 
war and a great number of transports, set 
sail for the mouth of the St. Lawrence.* 

Montcalm, thus menaced, resolved to 
mass his entire force on the elevations 
about Quebec, considered by him an im- 
pregnable stronghold, and hither the 
Western allies were summoned to aid in 
the defense ; De Langlade, at the head of 
two hundred warriors, being among the 
number. Here again the skill and sagac- 
ity of the frontiersman planned a bold 
move, that might have resulted in great 
loss to the enemy, and possibly led to a 
panic as fatal as that at the Mononga- 
hela.* A reconnoitering party, two thou- 

* Parkman's '' Montcalm and AVolfe." 



Charles de Langlade. to^ 

sand strong, venturing close to the French 
outposts — an ambush of savages eager to 
raise the war-cry and fall upon the un- 
wary enemy — De Langlade urging, im- 
ploring, his superiors to give the authority 
and support necessary for an attack ; then 
the fortunate moment gone, the oppor- 
tunity lost, which might have averted 
for a time the overthrow of French suprem- 
acy in Canada.* 

After the defeat of Montcalm on the 
Plains of Abraham, his death, the sub- 
sequent panic and hasty withdrawal of 
the troops by ^^audreuil, and the surren- 
der of Quebec, De Langlade returned to 
Michillimackinac ; yet once more in the 
following spring (1760) he joined the reor- 
ganized army in the vain attempt to regain 
for France her Canadian provinces. AVhen 
it became apparent that all hope was gone, 
and peace upon any terms must be con- 
cluded, De Langlade led back his Indian 
bands to their villages in the upper lake 
regions, receiving in acknowledgment of 
service rendered a commission as retired 
lieutenant signed by Louis XV.f He at 

* Parkman's '* Montcalm and Wolfe." 
t 8ee illustration. The original is in possession 
of Mrs. M. L. Martin. 



to6 Charles de Lafiglade. 

once resumed his duties as second officer 
in command at Michillimackinac, where 
shortly afterward letters from Yaudreuil 
apprised him of the capitulation of Mon- 
treal. 

Immediately all French forts through- 
out Canada were handed over to the Eng- 
lish, but were not at once occupied by 
them, remaining for some time with garri- 
sons of French or Canadians. The first 
British commandant of Michillimackinac, 
Captain George Ether ington, took pos- 
session in 1761, and desiring to become 
well acquainted with the state of affairs 
in his new post and its dependencies, in- 
vited some of the most influential among 
the French traders to come to the fort, 
take the oath of allegiance, and confer with 
him on important questions. Among them 
were the two De Langlades, who were 
treated with considerable deference, Charles 
being reappointed superintendent of In- 
dian affairs for the Green Bay division, a 
position which he had held under the 
French government. 

By the terms of capitulation, French 
subjects were allowed to remain in the 
country in full enjoyment of their civil 




OLVvVZ/'/^vAt: 



/ 






hi 



I 1 h:uM^h 






A'^' 



H 






&. 



V 



^ 






K' 



Commission of Charles De Langlade. 



DE PAR LE ROY. 

Sa Majeste ayant liiit choix du S"" Lang- 
lade pour servir en qualite de Lieutenant 
reforme a la suite des troupes entretenues 
en Canada, Elle mande au Gouverneur^ 
Son Lieutenant-general de la Nouvelle- 
France, de le recevoir et de le faire re- 
connaitre en la dite qualite de Lieutenant 
reforme de tout ceux et ainsy qu'il appar- 
tiendra. Fait a A^ersailles, le pr. fevrier 
1760. "Louis." 



Charles de Langlade. log 

and religious liberties, but the rights of 
trade belonged to the new masters, and 
before the close of the year all desirable 
posts were occupied by them. On the 
12th of October, 1761, British troops, under 
command of Captain Balfour, of the 80th, 
and Lieutenant James Gorrell, of the 60th, 
Royal American Regiments, landed at old 
Fort St. Francis at La Baye, which they 
found in a dilapidated condition ; the 
houses without cover, the stockade rotten 
and ready to fall. Captain Balfour, after a 
general survey of the fort and surround- 
ing country, departed, leaving Lieutenant 
Gorrell with a small command, made up of 
one sergeant, one corporal, fifteen privates,, 
and a French interpreter, in whom he felt 
little confidence, as representative of Brit- 
ish authority in this dismal outpost, to 
which had been given the high-sounding 
name of Fort Edward Augustus.* Two 
English traders, who came under the pro- 
tection of the military, bringing with them 
large and complete outfits of goods, were 
assigned quarters at the fort. 

It had been recommended bv Sir 



*Gorreirs Journal, "Wis. Hist. Colls., Vol. I.^ 
pp. 25-6; II., p. 2.32. 



I lo Charles de Langlade. 

William Johnson, general superintend- 
ent of Indian affairs in the Northwest, 
that as La Baye Verte was a great place 
for trade, presents should be generously 
distributed among the surrounding Indi- 
ans, of whom over thirty-nine thousand 
warriors, beside women and children, de- 
pended on this post for supplies.* Gor- 
rell therefore purchased from the traders 
goods to the amount of £135. si 2, exclu- 
sive of wampum ; and thus bribed, the 
Indians crowded to the fort, expressing 
great satisfaction that the English had 
come among them, promising friendship 
and plenty of valuable skins in exchange 
for British goods, w^hich indeed were much 
cheaper and of better quality than those 
furnished by the French. Yet, despite the 
apparent good-will of these diplomatists, 
who came to smoke the pipe of peace and 
exchange compliments with the command- 
ant, there was an undercurrent inimical 
to the new control ; rumors of attack were 
constant ; and two English traders, who 
ventured to follow the winter hunt, were 
never again heard from. 

*Gorreirs Journal, in Wis. His. Colls., Vol. I., 
p. 32. 



Charles dc Langlade. 1 1 1 

The little band passed a long and dreary 
Avinter, working to repair the fort and 
secure shelter against the bitter cold, from 
which they snffered severely. The young- 
commander found himself placed in a 
perilous position, surrounded as lie was 
by hostiles, both French and Indian — one 
false move, and destruction would have 
overwhelmed the garrison ; but with a 
fearless demeanor, to which were added 
tact, discretion, and uprightness in his 
dealings with the savages. Lieutenant 
Oorrell* succeeded in preserving peace 
under the new administration, and in 
holding for nearly two years all the 
country west of the Great Lakes for the 
young King George, third of the name, 
who, Aviththe revenues derived therefrom, 
intended to build in London a palace 
which should rival Versailles. 

The transfer of territory from French 
to English, and the occupation of this mili- 
tary post by the new power, did not alter, 
to any extent, the condition of the Cana- 

*Gorrell was popular also with the traders. 
There is extant a letter written by Edward 
Moran, and dated at Fort Edward Augustus, or 
La Baye, May 14th, 1763, in which he speaks of 
kind treatment received from Lieutenant Gorrell, 
and asks that " a ten-gallon bag of si)irits" be 
sent the officer on his account. 



112 Charles de Langlade. 

dian settlers, who still continued to live 
ill the same haphazard, happy-go-lucky 
fashion as before. The British introduced 
some few comforts amongst them, but 
little attention was given to agriculture, 
and the resources of the country in that 
direction were not developed until a later 
period. The De Langlades, as we have 
seen, immediately identified themselves 
Avitli the British interest, and were granted 
a permit by Colonel Etherington, which i& 
still extant, and reads as follows : 

" I have this day given permission ta 
^lessrs. Langlade, father and son, to re- 
main at the post at La Baye, and do 
hereby order that no person may intercept 
them in their voyage thither, with their 
Avives, children, servants and baggage."* 

But Charles and his family lingered at 
Michillimackinac, and happily for the En- 
glish commandant had not removed at the 
time of the Pontiac uprising, w^hen through 
Ether ington's own carelessness and the 
treacherous strategy of the Chippe- 
ways, his whole garrison lay at the mercy 
of tomahawk and scalping knife. Ether- 

^Langlade Papers, Wis. Hist. Colls., Vol. VIII.. 
p. 217. 



Charles de Langlade. 113 

ington and Lieutenant Leslie were made 
prisoners, and it is said that the stakes 
were driven, and the captives bound ready 
for burning, when De Langlade, with a 
l^and of Ottawas — a tribe ever faithful 
to his personal command — rescued the 
two Englishmen, who were taken to a 
place of safety, De Langlade, by order of 
Etherington, assuming command of the 
fort. 

Tliis conspiracy also menaced Fort Ed- 
ward Augustus ; the Sioux and La Baye 
Indians continuing, however, for the most 
2)art friendly, the danger was averted. On 
June 11 til Etherington wrote to Lieuten- 
ant Gorrell ordering the evacuation of the 
fort, saying that he with his men and the 
English traders at La Baye should hasten 
without loss of time to L'Arbre Croche, as 
ii general revolt of Indian tribes was anti- 
cipated. Trusty French clerks were to be 
left in charge of the remaining goods, it 
being well known that no violence would 
be offered to any of that nation. This 
letter was received on the 17th, and on the 
21st the command was in readiness for re- 
moval. Then the small fleet of bateaux, 
surrounded by its escort of canoes, in 



114 Charles de Langlade. 

Avhich were the ninety chiefs, Menominee^ 
AVinnebago, Fox and Sac, who had vol- 
unteered to open the road, closed by the 
Chippeways, to Montreal, moved out of 
the river, and thus ended the British mili- 
tary occupation of the fort at La Baye.* 
Probably not until after the suppression 
of the Pontiac trouble, did De Langlade,. 
with his wife and their two children, take 
up a permanent residenceon Fox River. He 
had married, in 1754, a young and hand- 
some Canadian girl, Charlotte Bourassa,. 
who apparently severed with much regret 
the pleasant associations of Michillimacki- 
nac, to form a new home m the almost 
wilderness of La Baye ; for, quite unlike 
the rapidly-maturing Western towns of to- 
day, this little group of voyageurs^ cabins 
increased slowly as years went by. The 
Indians, Madame de Langlade regarded 
with a consuming fear, possibly the result 
of those terrible days of massacre at 

"^A certificate granted to " Ogemawnee, chief 
of the Menominys," by Sir William Johnson, 
Britisli Indian superintendent, and dated at 
Niagara, Angust 1, 1764, thanking him for '' your 
good behaviour last 3^ear in protecting the Officers,. 
Soldiers, etc., of the Garrison of La Baye, and in 
escorting them down to Montreal," is in posses- 
sion of the AVisconsin Historical Society, at Madi- 
son. 



Charles de Langlade. t i ^ 

Mackinac ; the very sight of a canoe 
skimming down the river, or an Indian 
blanket in the doorway, filled her wdth an 
unreasoning terror. From the surround- 
ing tribes such visitors frequently came in 
a friendly way to the house, but it was 
long before the young madame became 
accustomed to their presence, and con- 
vinced that they meant no harm. 

Year by year father and son added to 
their land, until they claimed as their own 
fifteen acres lying opposite the fort, and 
south along the river, and extending back 
indefinitely. A part of this tract was 
cultivated as a garden, part was used as 
meadow land, and the wooded portion 
supplied the winter's fuel, and the maple 
sugar, which was made each spring in 
large quantities. 

Just across the river, and a half mile 
south of the fort, its wigwams, built of 
bark, bound with thongs of the elm tree's 
fibre, or in conical shape and covered with 
mats made of ^'puckaway" grass, lay the 
village of the Menominees, that tribe said 
by De Langlade to be the most peaceful, 
brave, and faithful of all that had served 
under him. In the Pontiac rebellion this 



1 16 Charles de Langlade. 

tribe refused to break their friendly relation 
with the British, and when a messenger 
from the conspirator came to them, bear- 
ing the red wampum belt, and a sum- 
mons to join in the plot, he was sent 
back to his chief with a very emphatic 
refusal. " Old King's Village," the 
€luster of cabins was called, and here lived 
the head chief Cha-kau-cho-ka-ma, or the 
Old King, and his speaker, Carron, son of 
a French trader, and father of the noted 
chief, Tomah. Cha-kau-cho-ka-ma, for 
his fidelity to the English, received from 
Governor Haldimand* a large silver 
medal, with a certificate of his chieftain- 
ship and good service ; and Carron was at 
the same time rewarded by the gift of a 
fine suit of embroidered clothes, a partiali- 
ty that filled the lesser chiefs with envious 
displeasure. This peace-loving old man 
died in Old King's village about the year 
1780.t 

Of the six families that had joined the 
De Langlades at Le Baye, three — Baptist 
Brunette, Legral and Joseph Roy — took 

* Governor General and Commander-in-Chief 
of North iVmerica at Quebec. 

fThe refusal of the Menominees to join the 
Pontiac conspiracy was due to Carron's in- 
fluence. 



Charles de Langlade. iiy 

up land on the west side of the river ; 
while the others, Pierre Grignon, Amable 
Roy and Marchand, ranged themselves 
along the eastern bank, each farm being 
a narrow strip of land running back two 
or three miles, but only a few arpents in 
width on the river front ; besides these, 
there were none but red men along the 
river's entire length. The small log 
houses clustered close together, insur- 
ing thereby protection against Indian 
marauders, and giving opportunity for 
the social gatherings and frolics, which 
were as necessary a part of French life as 
was the provision for its daily needs. 

At the outbreak of the Revolutionary 
War, Charles de Langlade was induced tc 
enter the British service, and this acquisi- 
tion Captain De Peyster, at that time 
commandant of the fort at Michillimacki- 
nac, declared equivalent to enlisting all 
the western tribes in that interest. So 
while Tory and Colonist clashed arms 
along the Atlantic coast, and settled the 
question of a nation's existence, De Lang- 
lade, and his nephew, Gautier de Verville 
were kept constantly employed going from 
tribe to tribe, speechifying, adjusting in- 



Hi 



Charles de Laiis:lade 



cb' 



ternecine quarrels, trying to outbid the 
"Bostonians"* with presents of wampum, 
clothing or food, if necessary. Interest in 
the British success was only lukewarm 
among western tribes, for the Creoles, 
almost to a man, sympathized with their 
colonial neighbors, and the savages were 
greatly influenced by them. " The In- 
dians are perfect Freemasons when in- 
trusted witji a secret by a Canadian,'^ 
writes De Peyster in 1778 ; and his letters 
all along show the difficulty in dealing 
with these fickle, irresponsible allies,, 
whose friendship it was yet so necessary 
to retain. t 

De Langlade and Gautier were great 
favorites with De Peyster, and, when not 
enlisting recruits, or leading out war 
parties, they were kept by the officer at 
Michillimackinac, where they received large 
pay, and were treated with respect. The 
remuneration given them seems to havo 
been insufficient for their needs, however ; 
for De Peyster, asking for them an increase 



*This term was applied by French and Indians 
to all Americans. 

fDe Peyster's "Miscellanies," a rare book. 
See sketch of De Pevster in Wis. Hist. Colls., VoL 
XL, p. 97. 



Charles de Langlade. i ig 

of salary, says : " These gentlemen repre- 
sent that they cannot live at this extrava- 
gant place on their allowance, having a 
constant run of Indians, who snatch the 
food out of their mouths." 

These were exciting times, too, at La 
Baye ; the large parties of Indians collected 
by Gautier and De Langlade usually ren- 
dezvoused there before passing on eastward 
and with their pow-wows and war-dances 
made hideous revel in the place. At one 
time war was declared between the Indians 
of this region and the Chippeway nation ; 
at another, the news came that Colonel 
George Rogers Clark, who was sweeping 
everything before him in the Illinois coun- 
try, would soon be at La Baye with three 
hundred men. 

It was to stir up the Indians for an ex- 
pedition against Colonel Clark that, in 
1779, De Peyster called a great council at 
L' Arbre Croche, near Mackinac. Thither 
the tribes were invited, to partake, as was 
customary, of a feast, dance the war- 
dance, and pledge their assistance to the 
British cause. A messenger went to the 
Indians of Milwaukee, but w^as met by 
cold indifference ; then Gautier essayed to 



1 20 Charles de Langlade. 

arouse their enthusiasm, only to be treated 
with insolent ridicule. " Those runagates 
of Milwaukee," De Peyster calls them, 
*' a horrid set of refractory Indians." Yet 
one effort further must be made to secure 
their promise of allegiance, and this time 
De Langlade himself went to them. 

In order to command an added respect, 
he wore his gay British uniform, the scar- 
let suit, high chapeau, and sword belt of red 
morocco, with the silver buckle, still to be 
seen in the Wisconsin Historical Society's 
museum. Finding every appeal unavail- 
ing, he at last drew upon his knowledge 
of savage superstition, and caused a lodge 
to be built in . the village center, w^here a 
dog feast, dear to the Indian heart, Avas 
prepared. A piece of dog's heart, raw and 
bleeding, was suspended at each open door 
of this lodge, and when the feast was over 
De Langlade, chanting a war song, marched 
around the booth, biting, each time he 
passed the doorway, a piece from the raw 
heart. This irresistible appeal to all brave 
hearts among his guests brought one war- 
rior after another to his feet, and soon all 
had joined in the march and song, had 
tasted of the dog's heart, and were irrevo- 



Charles de La ?i glade. 121 

cably pledged to follow their leader. At 
the close of the war, De Langlade was 
fittingly compensated for his services by 
the British government, wdiich granted 
him an annuity of $800, and a tract of 
land in Canada containing three thous- 
and acres. He was also, in 1752, confirmed 
in the possession of his lands at La Baye. 

His military career over, he settled down 
to quiet citizenship ; but even then his life 
was by no means an inactive one. The 
elder De Langlade, to whom, if to any, the 
title, "Father and Founder of Wisconsin," 
belongs, had died about the year 1771, leav- 
ing Charles at the head of an extensive busi- 
ness ; he had, besides, the charge of Indian 
affairs in the Western district, and was 
also captain of the local militia. His farm- 
ing interest was looked after by Pierre 
Grignon, a Canadian gentleman, who, 
coming to La Baye in 1773, soon became a 
close friend of the De Langlades, and later 
a ncAV tie cemented the friendship, for 
Grignon married the young daughter of 
his employer. 

At this time Charles de Langlade lived 
in a small house on the river shore, and 
in 1790 Grignon built a fine new home a 



122 Charles de La?iglade. 

few rods to the southward and facing the 
river, but fartlier eastward.* Stories are 
yet told of handsome carved woodwork, 
brought from Montreal to adorn the 
spacious living room, where a wide fire- 
place yawned ready for the great oak logs 
that sent sheets of flame up the deep- 
throated chimney, when the biting cold of 
winter settled down on river and prairie. 
When the young Louis Philippe, Due 
d'Orleans, exiled from his native land, and 
an outcast from European courts, came 
across seas to our new republic, he ex- 
tended his wanderings as far as this little 
French village, where he was entertained 
right royally in the dwelling by the river. 
He wondered much, tradition says, to hear 
his own tongue spoken with pure Parisian 
accent, and when at the evening merry- 
making, Madam de Langlade stepped a 
minuet, he vowed that in stately grace 
she rivaled the court ladies. An idle tale, 
perhaps, which casts the glamor of romance 
over a life that must have been difficult 



*The De Langlade house stood at the foot of 
Doty Street, near where Straiibe] & Ebeling's mill 
now is. On the opposite side of Washington 
Street, one square south, was the home of Pierre 
Grignon. 



Charles de Langlade. 1 2j 

and somewhat lawless at the best, but 
those of us who have felt the charm of 
gentle manner and unstudied courtesy in 
a later generation of the old pioneer 
families, will not be slow to believe that a 
refining influence pervaded, and made 
happy, their rude dwellings in the wild- 
erness. 

Trader and traveler, French and 
English, came and went, and all were 
made welcome to the bounty that reigned 
without stint. Pierre Grignon was a 
prince of entertainers, and a fine, affable 
gentleman as well. Each fall when traders 
came from the East, on their way to the 
Indian camps, Grignon would invite a 
jolly company of them to a banquet, 
where all delicacies procurable in water, 
air, and forest were served ; where good 
wine flowed freely, and song and story 
made merry the flying hours. 

The beginning of a new century, which 
was to work radical changes in the settle- 
ment at La Baye, saw the death of its 
principal landed proprietor, Charles de 
Langlade. Although for a score of 
years afterward the French Canadians 
largely predominated over in-coming 



124 Charles de Langlade. 

settlers, his death marked the de- 
cadence of this influence in the growing 
town. He was the link uniting the old 
days of French dominion, with its high- 
sounding titles and large pretensions, to a 
more practical era, and the romance of the 
old regime lingers about his memory. 

In later life he is described by his grand- 
son, Augustin Grignon, as somewhat 
above the medium height, rather heavy, 
but never corpulent. His crown was bald, 
the hair on his temples of a silvery white- 
ness. Under heavy eyebrows, grown to- 
gether, his large, deep black eyes looked 
out with gentle benignity, but could kin- 
dle into anger at suspicion of an insult. 
He loved to live over in narration his ac- 
tive career, recalling the battles and forays, 
ninety-nine in all, in which he had taken 
part, regretting that the number had not 
been rounded out to an even one hundred. 
Nor was this the empty boast of an old 
man looking back with indulgent eyes over 
his past. The Indians, always quick to 
seize upon the salient point in character 
or appearance, bestowed on De Lang- 
lade the name, Au-ke-win-ge-ke-tau-so, 
meaning, " He who is fierce for the land '* 
— a military conqueror. 



Charles de Langlade. 12^ 

Almost half a century after his death, 
at one of the many treaties held in Wis- 
consin, an old Menominee chief was over- 
heard relating to an audience of his own 
people the story of Mackinac's capture, 
which he brought to a climax thus : 

" AVhen the Chippeway war chief cap- 
tured Fort Michillimackinac and the Eng- 
lish officers, he was required by the spirit 
which gave him power to make a sacrifice 
of his prisoners, but before he could do 
this, the 'Bravest of the Brave' came, and 
snatched the captives out of his hands, and 
the war chief squatted down, foiled of 
his purpose." 

" Who was this 'Bravest of the Brave' ?" 
asked his listeners, " and why did the 
Chippeway w^ar chief so easily relinquish 
his victims ?" 

To which the old chief replied, '' The 
Bravest of the Brave, whose courage was 
too well known all over the western world 
for anyone to dare oppose him, was Au-ke- 
win-ge-ke-tau-so, Charles de Langlade."* 



* The material for this chapter, unless other- 
wise noted, is taken from Grignon's EecoUec- 
tions, Wis. Hist. Colls., Vol. III., and from 
" Memoirs of Charles de Langlade," by Joseph 
Tasse, Id., Vol. VII. 



CHAPTER V. 
"In Good Old Colony Days." 

In reviewing the transition period com- 
prised in the half century that succeeded 
the withdrawal of French rule, it seems 
little less than marvelous that, amidst 
the turmoil of contending nations and 
never-ending Indian embroilments, trade 
should have maintained a firm foothold, 
and that English capital and enterprise, 
though often driven off the ground, con- 
tinued to push their way into the western 
wilderness. 

In 1783 the Northwest Company, for 
the prosecution of the fur trade, was or- 
ganized at Montreal, at first with very mod- 
erate expectations of gain ; in a few years its 
ramifications extended from Hudson Bay 
to the Rocky Mountains, and its revenues 
were enormous. 

A general depot of supplies for the 
Mississippi Indians was located at Mackinac, 
with branch houses at La Baye and Prai- 
rie du Chien, and Canadian voyageurs 
constantly drifted back and forth, either 

126 



^'■In Good Old Colony Days!' I2y 

in the employ of these estabHshments or 
as independent traders. The Fox River 
settlement in 1785 numbered just fifty -six 
souls. All business was transacted on the 
east side, where stood two trading houses ; 
one belonging to a Mackinac company, 
w4th an agent in charge ; the other owned 
by Pierre Grignon. In 1791 came Jacques 
Porlier,* afterwards a successful trader, 
and in 1794 Jacob Franks, an English 
Jew, as clerk for the firm of Ogilvie, Gil- 
lespie & Co., who had established a post 
at the Baye. Three years later Franks 
bought out the entire business interest and 
set up for himself, bringing from Canada, 
as an assistant, his young nephew, John 
Lawe, t then about sixteen years of age. 

From old letters and other documents, 
dating back to 1800, we gain an insight 
into the life of that day in this distant cor- 
ner of the world. The absorbing topic of 
interest is the fur trade, and it appears a 
matter of wonder that large fortunes were 
ever made from this most uncertain traffic. 



* Porlier lived for many years in the small, 
low house on the west side of Fox River, since 
known as the Tank cottage. It was buUt by one 
of the Roys early in the present century. 

t Lawe's father was an ofiicer in the English 
service. 



128 ''In Good Old Colony Days:' 

Prices for peltries in London always seem 
at the lowest; the Indians are rogues, and 
cheat if possible ; while the winter hunt is 
invariably a disappointment. Complaint 




Home of Jacques Porlier. 

is made to Jacob Franks, in 1802, that 
wandering traders follow small bands of 
Indians to the woods, and in exchange for 
whisky take from them beaver and other 
skins when green, to the detriment of busi- 
ness at the legitimate posts. Notwith- 
standing the continued depression in the 
peltry market, however, these early settlers 
of La Baye appear to have lived in great 
comfort, and gleaned considerable enjoy- 
ment out of life. 

As early as 1806 the firms of Pierre and 



"/;/ Good Old Cohmy Days.'' J2g 

Augustin Grignon, Porlier and Roche- 
blave, Jacob Franks, and John Lawe, all 
carried on extensive trading operations, 
not only at La Baye, but throughout the 
western country, a younger member of 
the firm or a clerk being sent to take 
charge of the winter camp. During the 
summer months the only fur in fit state 
to be taken was that of the red deer, a skin 
little prized by the traders, who profited, 
however, by this lull in trade to prosecute 
their annual voyages to Montreal or Macki- 
nac. Much time was also devoted to an 
oversight of their gardens, on the success- 
ful cultivation of which depended their 
winter's supply of vegetables and grain. 
The work was performed entirely by engages, 
an ignorant yet sturdy set of men, ready 
for any menial or mechanical work at 
hand, who were bound by a cast iron con- 
tract to serve their employers for the term 
of two years or over. They were to ex- 
ecute faithfully every duty imposed on 
them by the 'Sieur. * This engagement not 
infrequently was extended to five years, 
while the voyageur might, on the other 



^Turner's "Character and Influence of the Fur 
Trade in Wisconsin," p. 79. 



1^0 '•'■In Good Old Colony Days^ 

hand, be transferred to another master at 
pleasure of his chief. 

Autumn brought the great excitement 
of the year, for then the traders bound 
for distant posts on the Mississippi halted 
at La Baye, which was dubbed by them 
''The City," in recognition of its lively 
social character. Long before the little 
hamlet was reached, in the far distance 
could be heard the song of the voyageurs 
w^ho paddled with redoubled effort as they 
neared the end of their long and tedious 
journey. As the canoe shot into sight, 
the group of expectant habitants on the 
shore could distinguish the swarthy boat- 
men dressed in gaj^est colors to be bought 
in Montreal. Coarse blue trousers, gaudy 
striped shirt and bright handkerchief 
knotted at the throat ; girded about the 
waist a scarlet sash, in which were thrust 
the sharp knife and pouch of tobacco, 
while a tasseled worsted cap or brilliant 
turban bound around the head, completed 
the costume. Seated amidships, keeping 
a sharp eye on his crew, was the "bour- 
geois," or clerk, who commanded the ex- 
pedition, surrounded by bags of dried 
peas or hard biscuits, and packages of 



''In Good Old Colofiy Days.'' 131 

merchandise. This young autocrat in 
corduroy roundabout and trousers affected 
the air of a gentleman of leisure, the en- 
gaged and guides treating him as a su- 
perior being. None of the drudgery de- 
volved upon him: at difficult landings 
he was carried to shore on the shoulders 
of his men, yet with all these advantages 
the lot of the bourgeois was not an easy 
one. In his far-away post he was often 
pinched by hunger ; the chase became of 
absorbing interest, and even if game could 
be procured, flour and salt were luxuries un- 
known. No wonder he looked back re- 
gretfully to the halcyon days spent at 
La Baye, where, with comrades of his class 
he would dawdle away the time as long 
as an excuse for delay could be invented. 
One young trader, becoming unutterably 
weary of the winter loneliness at the Mil- 
waukee post, made the long journey of 
over one hundred miles on snow shoes 
and alone, to spend a merry week with 
his voyageur friend, Jacob Franks. 

No gayer little settlement could at this 
time be found west of Montreal. The Du- 
charmes, Brunettes, Chevalliers and Roys 
were as fond of the dance as any of their 



IJ2 ^'■In Good Old Colony Days.^ ' 

merry countrymen, and in the snug cabins, 
with their sloping bark roofs and mud 
chimneys, there could always be found a 
fiddler ready to wield the bow when oc- 
casion offered. So, although wolves 
howled on the outskirts of the clearings 
and bears made frequent raids on the 
sheep folds, the light-hearted Canadi- 
ans, happy in their isolation, cheated 
the dreary time. While winter held 
sway, the icy river formed a race track 
for cariole and French train. Seated in 
the latter, a box about five feet long and 
four inches high, well wrapped in furs, 
protected from nipping cold by the high 
capote drawn closely over head and 
neck, the habitants would skim over the 
clear ice, drawn by small French ponies, 
with the merry jingle of bells as an ac- 
companiment to the drive. It was a free, 
jolly existence, and few of those who en- 
joyed it for any length of time, cared to 
return to civilized life. 

In 1796, England formally yielded pos- 
session of the western countries, and with- 
drew her garrisons from Mackinac and 
Detroit, but the authority of the United 
States at La Baye was a dead letter until 



"/// Good Old Colony Days" 133 

ill 1803 first slight notice was bestowed 
upon the settlement by the issue of a 
commission, signed by Governor Harri- 
son, of Indiana, whose authority extended 
throughout the Northwest, appointing 
Charles Reaume as justice of the peace. 
This erratic Frenchman, who was first to 
represent the judiciary within the limits 
of Wisconsin, arrived at his new home on 
Fox River in 1792 from La Prairie, a little 
hamlet lying across the St. Lawrence 
River from Montreal. After an attempt 
at merchandising in a small way, and 
having sold out or squandered his stock 
in trade, he purchased a few arpents of 
land fronting on the river, and bounded 
on the north by La Riviere Glaise, a small, 
picturesque stream flowing into the Fox 
three miles above its mouth, and now 
called less euphoniously Dutchman's Creek. 
Here he built himself a comfortable house, 
and lived with his dog Rabasto, trained 
by him to drive away the thieving black- 
birds that troubled his wheat and corn 
fields. 

Many are the queer stories related of 
old Judge Reaume. He presided over 

his primitive court with an air of pom- 

10 



1^4 "-^^^ Good Old Colofiy Days^ 

pous dignity, dressed in an ancient British 
uniform, red coat and cocked hat; in 
making arrests, his old horn jack knife 
was exhibited by the constable in place of 
a warrant. One volume of Black stone 
adorned his cabin, but did not in any 
manner influence his decisions, the legal 
code improvised by him being a combina- 
tion of the coutume de Paris, or old laws 
of France, and the customs of the traders 
with whose peculiar modes of adjudica- 
tion he was entirely familiar. Practically 
Reaume's court was the supreme court 
of the country, for the county town of 
Vincennes was distant and difficult of ac- 
cess, requiring four or five hundred miles 
of travel by the circuitous route of that 
day, so that the losing party preferred to 
suffer injustice rather than go to the ex- 
pense of an appeal. In his decisions the 
Judge had an ingenious way of turning 
the delinquencies of others to his personal 
profit, and the penalty for an offense 
would often be a day's work in his 
Honor's fields or a load of wood or hay 
for his use. 

This sole representative of justice west 
of Lake Michigan was kept busy with his 



''In Good Old Colony Days:' 13s 

varied and responsible duties. There were 
the long marriage contracts to be written 
out, the judge going with ink horn and 
quill to the tidy little French cabin where 
the ceremony was to take place. Then in 
presence of the most prominent persons 
of the village and as many others as could 
crowd into the small room, Louis Mor- 
naux and Louise Chevallier, or some other 
young couple who wished to marry, with 
the consent of their parents, were pro- 
nounced man and wife. The little brides 
were often not more than eleven or twelve 
years old, but the agreement to which 
they pledged themselves was a very long 
and serious one, signed by witnesses, six- 
teen or more, while at the foot of the 
heavy document in blackest of ink was 
the signature ending in a flourish : 
Charles Eeaume, 
Juge a Paix, 

De la Baye Verte. 
At the conclusion of this weighty and 
judicial ceremony came the merry-mak- 
ing, the fiddling, dancing, and feasting, 
for it was well known that the Judge was 
fond of the good things of life, and the 
venison, smothered in wild rice and maple 



1^6 ^^In Good Old Coloiiy Days.'' 

sugar, the stewed sturgeon, fat ducks, and 
jug of strong drink, were provided with 
special reference to his appreciative ap- 
petite. 

The priestly office was also assumed by 
this popular magistrate at christenings, 
and his duties included the transfer of 
lands, and the drawing up of contracts 
with engages, who w^ere obliged to prom- 
ise that they would live on Indian corn 
and tallow with what other provision 
could be found in a savage country ; that 
they would look faithfully after the mer- 
chandise, peltries, utensils, and all neces- 
sary things for the voyage ; and this for a 
yearly stipend of from one hundred to one 
hundred and fifty dollars.* One of these 
employes having deserted the trader to 
whom he was bound, the aggrieved party 
applied to Judge Reaume for a legal opin- 
ion in the matter. The old man answered 
in his broken English, " I'll make de man 
go back to his duty." "But," was asked, 
"what is the law on the subject?" Again 
came the imperturbable answ^er, " De law 
is, I'll make de man go back to his duty." 
The inquiry was reiterated, " Judge 

'\MSS. inWisconsin Historical Society 's Library. 



"/;/ Good Old Colony Daysr 137 

Keaume, is there no law bearing on this 
question?" With conscious dignity the 
judge rephed : " We are accustomed to 
make de men go back to their bourgeois." 
And they were made to go back, the whip- 
ping post being resorted to if other per- 
suasives failed. On the whole, Judge 
Reaume was quite equal to the position he 
was called to fill ; his decisions were usually 
founded on equity, and generally gave 
entire satisfaction to the simple folk over 
w^hom he held arbitrary sway, and, al- 
though not versed in jurisprudence, he was 
respected and loved. 

By the provisions of a law enacted by 
Congress in 1802, trading licences were to 
be granted to citizens of the United States 
and no others;* but La Baye was outside 
these territorial restrictions, her Canadian 
inhabitants were sworn subjects of Great 
Britain, and when, in 1810, the United 
States garrisoned Mackinac and prepared 
to enforce the prohibitory law, the 
aggrieved traders determined to run the 
blockade or sink all in the venture. A 
league of seven was formed, headed by 
Robert Dickson, an agent of the North- 

*MSS. inWisconsin Historical Society'sLibrary. 



1^8 ''In Good Old Colony Days.'' 

west Compan}^ and a noted English leader. 
Two of the Baye traders, John Lawe and 
Jacob Franks, joined the enterprise. The 
bateaux loaded with fifty thousand dollars 
worth of goods, and well supplied with 
fire-arms, to resist if need be, an attack 
from the garrison, stole by the island at 
night, passing the sentry without dis- 
covery, and arrived in safety at La Baye, 
where outfits of goods were delivered to 
the expectant traders. 

During the same year Ramsey Crooks 
and Wilson P. Hunt, agents of Astor's 
Southwest Company, with their daring 
band of fellow-explorers, urged their canoes 
past the scattered voyageur cabins along 
the Fox, bound for the Pacific coast. The 
perilous overland journey has been im- 
mortalized in Irving's "Astoria," and also 
the failure of this brilliant venture, which 
came inevitably with the Anglo-American 
conflict, even then brewing. 

On December 18th, 1811, John Jacob 
Astor wrote Jacob Franks* to use all pos- 
sible influence to keep peace among the 
Indians, adding, that should there be war 

■^Original letter in possession of D. H. Grignon, 
Green Bay, It is addressed to Mr, Jacob Franks 
Green Bay, Lake Michigan, Fort Chicago. 



'■'■Ill Good Old Colony Days.'' ijg 

between the United States and Great Brit- 
ain, as then threatened, trade would be 
ruined and no one benefited. In the fol- 
lowing spring foreboding became certainty. 
War was declared on the 18th of June, 
1812 ; in July the English seized Macki- 
nac, Colonel Dickson, with a following of 
Menominees, taking part in the attack. 
Returning to La Baye, laden with the cap- 
tured spoils, Dickson was there met by a 
band of Sacs from the Illinois country, 
who had followed him in hope of obtain- 
ing supplies. With them was the noted 
■chief. Black Hawk, whom Dickson named 
as leader of the allied nations, and dis- 
patched with five hundred warriors to assist 
in an assault on Detroit.* A powerful co- 
adjutor, from his great influence with the 
western tribes, Dickson was soon after 
placed in charge of the district west of 
Lake Michigan, the title of Agent and Su- 
perintendent of Western Nations, being 
conferred upon him. Five lieutenants and 
sixteen interpreters were allowed him. 
Chicago and La Baye were designated as 
points of rendezvous and deposit for sup- 
plies. 

*Memoirof Robert Dickson, Wis. Hist. Colls., 
Vol. XII., p. 141. 



I40 ^^In Good Old Colojiy JDays^ 

From the first declaration of hostilities^ 
sympathy among French habitants at La 
Baye went with the English, to whom 
they had become thoroughly attached. 
They dreaded the possible advent of 
Americans, whom they considered nig- 
gardly as a people, likely to interrupt com- 
merce with Canada, and certain to subject 
the traders to vexations and extortions, if 
nothing worse. Dickson appointed as lieu- 
tenants for this section, John La we and 
Louis Grignon, a part of whose duties may 
be understood from the following order : 

Winnebago Lake, November loth, 1813. 

Gentlemen — I have been directed by Capt. 
Bullock, commandant at Michilimackinac, to pro- 
cure beef, flour and pease for his garrison from 
La Baye; j^ou will therefore deliver Serg't Mc- 
Galpin what you can collect, taking his receipt 
for the same. You will please furnish the detach- 
m.ent of Michigan Fencibles with provisions whil& 
at La Baye, and for their route to Mackinac, send- 
ing in account of the same and also what else may 
be necessary for their voyage. I have the honor 
to be, gentlemen. 

Your most humble o'b't servant, 

Robert Dickson. 

A season of sharp adversity now began 
for the ease-loving people at La Baye. The 



''/;/ Good Old Colony Days'' 141 

Frencli were fur traders, not agricultur- 
ists, and were, moreover, much too fond of 
enjoyment to spend their time in unneces- 
sary labor ; so Avhile abundant grain had 
been harvested to supply the inhabitants 
and traders who passed that way, it was a 
different matter when the garrison at 
Mackinac depended on them for provis- 
ions, and Colonel Robert Dickson, from his 
winter quarters on Garlic Island, made 
daily demands for food to give the hordes 
of starving Indians who came to him for 
aid. " If the provisions fail, and the peo- 
ple refuse to sell, seize what is necessary 
in the King's name. I would by no 
means wish to proceed to extremities, but 
his Majesty's soldiers must be furnished 
with provisions."* 

Garlic Island is one of the loveliest 
spots on Fox River, but in the bitter win- 
ter of 1813 it was an absolute wilderness 
and by no means a cheerful residence. 
Dickson became heartily weary of the 
place, and as his necessities grew urgent 
he wrote to John La we : " Black or white, 



* Dickson and Grignon PaperB, Wis. Hist. 
Colls.,Vol. XI., p. 279. 



142 ^'■In Good Old Colojiy Days.'" 

you must contrive to get me a little flour, 
hunger is not nice respecting the quality." 
On the bank of La Riviere Glaise there 
stood at that early day a primitive mill, 
owned by Pierre Grignon. The miller 
was Dominick Brunette, nicknamed "Mas- 
ca," by the neighbors, who lingered to 
smoke and gossip with him, w^hile the 
great stones slowly ground out their por- 
tions of wheat or corn. Upon this depos- 
itory for grain the British agent kept a 
covetous eye. " I hope that Mr. Jacobs 
has got Masca's fifty bushels of wheat and 
pair of oxen. There must no toll be paid 
at the mil], and tell Rabbis that he must 
not cheat the King, although he may 
cheat all the rest of the world, which I am 
convinced he does. If Masca will sell his 
wheat without any further stipulation at 
three dollars a bushel, take it, if not we 
shall keep our eye on it when hunger 
shall make us keen." 

As the winter advanced, Dickson's de- 
mands grew imperative. He ordered his 
lieutenants to procure supplies at the end 
of their guns, should there be no other 
way, and if unable to hire a sleigh on 
w^hich to load a cord of sturgeon, to press 



''/;/ Good Old Colony Days:' 143 

one for the King, horse and owner. Of 
the beef sent him he writes : 

" The Bull was not Beef, only Bone. I 
Avill eat Bull Frogs before I buy any more 
bad beef at 30 cents, and I will starve or 
plunder rather than be imposed on in the 
price of provisions. We Kill Ducks in 
great abundance and can live, if it pleases 
God, without 30 cent Bone." 

Red of face and hair, with a most irasci- 
ble temper, Dickson presents a curious 
contrast to the dark-skinned, courteous 
gentlemen with whom he had to deal, yet 
in spite of his bluff ways he was well 
liked by both traders and Indians, the 
latter being treated by him with paternal 
kindness. 

Tidings of British victories were re- 
ceived on March 20th, 1814, when the 
royalists of La Baye were ordered to as- 
semble and celebrate the event with the 
lighting of bontires, and drinking of 
healths to His Majesty, the Prince Regent, 
and Sir George Provost. Later in the 
season the impoverished habitants planted 
their little farms, hopeful of better times, 
and that the scarcity of the preceeding 
winter would not be repeated. 



144 ''^'^ Good Old Colony Days.'' 

It was on the fourth of July in tlie same 
year, that a band of Mackinac red coats^ 
under command of Lt.-Col. WiUiam McKay, 
hot for the capture of the American fort 
at Prairie du Chien, paused at La Baye for 
reinforcements. There was hasty arm- 
ing among the Canadian voyageurs, and a 
company of about thirty was raised, some 
of them being old men unfit for service. 
Pierre (irignon was appointed captain, 
with Peter Powell and Augustin Grignon 
as Lieutenants, while Jacques Porlier, Jr., 
received a commission as Lieutenant in 
Pullman's regulars. A motley fleet moved 
up the river, the troops and Canadian boat- 
men in barges or bateaux leading the 
A' an, a shoal of bark canoes following with 
their freight of painted and befeathered 
savages. The Prairie was reached on the 
17th, and after some bloodless skirmishing 
the fort surrendered. 

The damage resulting from this martial 
interlude, which engaged much of La 
Baye's working population, was serious. In 
September, Louis Grignon wTote to friends 
at Mackinac that the country was much 
devastated, cattle and Indians had done 
great harm to the crops, and the wheat 



"/// Good Old Colony Days:' 145 

Avas completely ruined in the fields. An- 
other winter of distress followed. The 
British agents swore at their government 
for shameful neglect in failing to send 
them ammunition and supplies, complain- 
ing too, that not even a glass of grog or 
pipe of tobacco had been received to while 
away the winter evenings. Colonel Dick- 
.son was again icebound for a short time 
on Lake Winnebago, and his forcible let- 
ters give a vivid picture of the sorry situ- 
ation. In early spring, just before the 
river highw^ay was rendered impassible by 
floating ice. Captain Bulger of his Majes- 
ty's service, Commandant at Prairie du 
Chien, made a flying visit to La Baye, and 
compelled the already overtaxed villagers 
to pay the hundredth part of their scanty 
harvesting into the King's store. "This 
place is destitute of provisions," writes 
Louis Grignon. "Many of the inhabitants 
will not be able to sow their fields for 
lack of seed grain." 

One month later, peace was concluded, 
the Indian recruits were mustered back to 
their villages with orders to desist hence- 
forth from hostilities against the Ameri- 
cans, and the loyal subjects of his Britannic 



146 ^'■In Good Old Colony Days^ . 

Majesty at La Baye Verte awaited with 
many misgivings the transfer of govern- 
ment and probable inauguration of an en- 
tire change of pohcy. 




CHAPTER VI. 

Under the American Flag. 

There was great rejoicing throughout 
the land when news was received from 
Ghent that the United States commission- 
ers and EngHsh embassage, for months 
engaged in diplomatic negotiations, had 
agreed upon terms for a treaty of peace. 
Federalists and democrats alike joined in 
congratulations that the war, which in the 
commencement had met with strong op- 
position from a large proportion of the 
people, was successfully terminated, with 
honor to the American arms, especially the 
naval service. Commerce revived; the busy 
stroke of hammer and mallet was again 
heard in the ship-yards ; the sacked and 
deserted capital became once more the 
center of a gay coterie, and the weekly 
levees of charming Dolly Madison gained 
in brilliancy by the attendance in full 
uniform of Major-Generals Brown, Gaines, 
Scott, and Harrison, heroes of the recent 
disturbance. 

147 



14^ Under the Ame^'icafi Flag. 

Throughout the northwest Indian coun- 
try, at Detroit, Michillimackinac, and Green 
Bay, the outlook and present situation 
were strikingly different. Deprived of 
their crops and cattle, and of the revenue 
derived from the fur trade, which was 
now practically at a standstill, the Cana- 
dian colonists were in a desperate condi- 
tion. In the immediate vicinity of Green 
Bay were more than three thousand sav- 
ages, who were able in an emergency to 
gather together twice that number from « 
adjoining tribes ; all were actively hostile to 
the new masters, and kept moreover in 
a state of ferment by English emissaries, 
who were not unwilling to throw obstacles 
in the way of their plucky enemies, the 
Americans. 

Brighter days were to daw^n, how^ever. 
The importance of the place was apparent 
in the jealousy with which the Indian 
nations regarded its occupancy. It be- 
came evident to the authorities at Wash- 
ington that this pivotal point must be 
protected, so far as possible, from English 
interference, and the profits of the fur 
trade diverted into the government cof- 
fers. It w^as decided that a fort be erected 



Under the American Flag. 14^ 

at Green Bay, and a preliminary step was 
the appointment of an Indian agent, fol- 
lowed a few months later by the establish- 
ment of a government trading post. 
John Jacob Astor had, also, at the con- 
clusion of the war, re-organized his trad- 
ing interests under the title of the Ameri- 
can Fur Company, and once more sent 
fleets of canoes laden with merchandise 
into the beaver country.* His western 
agent, Ramsey Crooks, was a shrewd, 
resolute Scotchman, thoroughly conver- 
sant with the methods of Indian trade. 
Astor's deputy adopted a policy certain in 
the end to be successful, employing as 
agents the men who for so long had con- 
trolled commerce in this section of coun- 
try ; thus gaining their powerful influence 
toward the advancement of his enterprise. 
John Bowyer, late colonel of infantry 
and first United States Indian agent for the 
Green Bay district, reached his new post 
in the summer of 1815. He was a short, 
stoutly-built old man, with enough French 

* An invoice of goods sent in 1815 to Jacques 
Porlier ends with " 12 kegs of high wines," which 
was probably for use in a distillery, the stout 
beams of which were still to be seen thirty years 
ago spanning the ravine south of the K. B. Kel- 
logg residence. 

11 



i^o Under the A7?terican -Flag. 

blood in his veins to render him popular 
among his Canadian neighbors, with 
whom he was soon hand in glove ; yet he 
was able at will to assume the "grande aire" 
calculated to impress his troublesome 
w^ards with the importance of the mission 
assigned him, and the confidence reposed 
in him by their august father at Wash- 
ington. 

Judge Reaume's farm, on Dutchman's 
Creek, was purchased by the agent, and 
although few official reports remain of his 
administration, a record of merry even- 
ings passed at the agency house is con- 
tained in the significant item, scattered 
here and there through old fur trading 
accounts, of so many shillings "lost at play 
at Colonel Bowyers."* 

The first vessels to spread sail on Green 

Bay, brought in July, 1816, the American 

troops and their commander, Colonel John 

Miller, 3d United States Infantry. There 

were three boats in the fleet. On the 

Hunter and Mink were quartered the 

men. The Washington, which bore the 

* In 1818 the western agencies passed under 
the supervision of Gov. Lewis Cass. Colonel 
Bowyer died in 1820, John Biddle succeeding 
him as agent. The salary at that time was $125 
per month. — Amer. State Papers. 



Under the American Flag. i^i 

commandant, was a boat of one hundred 
tons burden, the largest and finest on the 
lakes, and would have seemed of great 
size at any inland port in those days ; but 
on the waters of the bay, where no craft 
larger than the bateaux of the traders had 
floated heretofore, it appeared of imposing 
proportions ; and with flags flying and 
deck crowded with uniformed men, excited 
the wonder of the natives. The pilot was 
Augustin Grignon, who chanced to be 
trading at Mackinac and was pressed into 
the service ; the chief officer of the staunch 
craft, Captain Dobbins, an experienced 
navigator, took frequent soundings, fear- 
ing possible rocks and shoals in the un- 
familiar waters. 

During the second or third night out, 
the little fleet became separated, and the 
Washington put into harbor at a large 
island just at the entrance of the bay. 
This the passengers explored and christ- 
ened Washington, while another not far 
distant received the name of Chambers, 
in compliment to Colonel Chambers, one 
of the officers in command of the troops. 
On the third day, nothing having been 
seen of the other vessels, the Washington 



1^2 Under the American Flag. 

continued her voyage, passing through 
Porte de Mort, and rejoined her missing 
consorts at VermiHon Island. Two days 
later, on July 16th, all three dropped 
anchor in Fox River. 

The troops disembarked shortly after 
noon on the identical spot where nearly a 
century before Montigny had landed his 
French forces. The new-comers were 
well aware of the repugnance felt toward 
them by the surrounding redskins, and 
had apprehended from them possible re- 
sistance, but the tents were pitched with- 
out interference and over the camp and 
from the masts of the vessels lying at 
anchor, floated, for the first time in Green 
Bay's history, the American flag. 

Colonel Dickson's "Garde de Corps," 
the Menominees at Old King's Village, 
watched with mutterings of discontent 
the busy work of debarkation. Their 
chief, Cha-ka-cho-kama, the " Old King," 
who no longer took part in councils of 
war, was represented by Tomah, a son 
of Carron, an eloquent speaker. 

With the resolve to mollify the Indians, 
if possible, by a politic bearing, Colonel 
Miller, on the afternoon of his arrival, 



Under the American Flag. 1^3 

waited upon the "King," attended by Major 
Gratiot, Colonel Chambers, Captain Ben 
O'Fallon, and other officers, for the pur- 
pose of formally asking his consent to the 
erection of a fort. The younger chieftain 
received the delegation with unexpected 
dignity, smoked with the white men, but 
was slow in answering their request. 
Glancing up and down the shores of the 
beautiful river, where for so long his na- 
tion had dwelt in unmolested security, his 
dark eyes and expressive countenance 
gathered gloom ; for even at that early 
day it was a well-known adage among the 
Indians, that " where the white man puts 
down his foot he never takes it up again." 
Finally, in a speech clothed in much 
picturesqueness of language and delivered 
with a majesty of demeanor that deeply 
impressed his auditors, Tomah gave re- 
luctant consent, asking but one favor — 
that his French brothers should not be 
disturbed nor in any way molested. 

Having gained the reluctant acqui- 
escence of the Menominees, Colonel Miller 
awaited with some anxiety the action of 
the Winnebagoes, then encamped in their 
'' great village " on the shores of the lake 



1^4 IJjider the American Flag. 

that now bears their name. A depu- 
tation of these Indians soon appeared, 
headed by their chief, and remonstrated 
with Colonel Miller on his unwarranted 
invasion of their territory. He treated 
the embassy with courteous respect and 
ceremoniously requested their permission 
to establish a fort, adding that though 
armed for war his purpose was peace. 
The chief is reported to have briefly re- 
plied — if his object was peace he had 
brought more men than were necessary 
for council or treaty — if Avar, he had too 
few to fight. Colonel Miller assured him 
that there was a reserve force that he had 
not seen, and, inviting him down to the 
river bank, pointed out ten or twelve can- 
non, which proved a conclusive argument. 
The troops spent two months in severe 
labor, hewing timber and sawing out lum- 
ber with a whip-saw for the barracks and 
houses, which they erected on the west 
side of Fox River, a mile from its mouth,* 
from plans prepared by Major Gratiot, 



■^For the location of the first American fort, 
see Report on Indian Aftairs, Jedidiah Morse, 
D. D., page 58. Amer. State Papers, Vol. IV., 
p. 852, Plan of the Settlement at Green Bay, 1821. 
Wis. Hist. Colls., Vol. III., page 281. 



Under the American Flag. 755 

who, however, only remained long enough 
to see the work well begun, leaving its 
completion to the superintendence of 
Colonel Chambers. To the fort when 
finished was given the name of Howard, 
in memory of General Benjamin Howard, 
U. S. A., who was in command of the 
western country during the early part of 
the war just concluded.* 

Unlike the community which the Brit- 
ish found fifty years previous, the settle- 
ment was an attractive and pleasant one. 
There were numerous small farms under 
good cultivation scattered along the river 
shore, and their occupants were for the 
most part well pleased with the establish- 
ment of a garrison among them, as it fur- 
nished a market for their surplus grain 
and vegetables, and gave a new impetus 
to trade. Vessels began to arrive with 
some frequency, bringing supplies to the 
fort, and the people experienced in a de- 
gree the benefits of lake commerce and 
navigation. A decidedly hostile element 
in the little community, however, was the 
fraternity of fur traders, who had so pros- 



* General Howard built Fort Clark at Peoria. 
He died at St. Louis, 1814. 



1 §6 Under the American Flag. 

pered under English rule, and were jeal- 
ous of American interference in their 
commerce. 

Trading posts or factories, under the 
management of United States government 
officials, had been conducted with some 
success at Chicago and other points favor- 
able for Indian trade, and were regarded 
as a means toward gaining the confidence 
of the natives. Major Matthew Irwin* 
was placed in charge of such an establish- 
ment at Green Bay in 1815, and on the 
arrival of the military, quarters were 
assigned him at the fort. This worthy 
gentleman, who, from previous experience, 
was well versed in the duties of his office, 
was quite unprepared for the determined 
opposition that he encountered from the 
league formed by eastern monopolists 
with traders of life-long experience. Ac- 
cording to the gossip of the time he did 
not secure during his incumbency of seven 
years, fifty dollars' worth of peltries, al- 
though the Indians were ready enough to 



* During the war of 1812, Major Irwin acted 
as assistant commissary, and was captured at 
Mackinac by the English and their Indian alUes. 



Under the American Flag. i^y 

bring him maple sugar, which proved a 
most miprofitable investment.* 

The faihire of these factories was largely 
due to an inferior quality of goods sup- 
plied by government, the sleazy blankets 
and unserviceable guns comparing unfa- 
vorably with the fine articles of English 
make distributed by the American Fur 
Company ; and the refusal of factors to 
sell liquor, or give supplies on credit to 
native hunters, increased their unpopu- 
larity, f In official reports sent by him to 
the Indian Department, Major Irwin re- 
counts in detail the constant annoyances 
to which he was subjected, and denounces 
Ramsay Crooks as a British agent working 
in the interest of that government. Green 

* During the years 1815-16 no sales were made. 
From that time until the suspension of the fac- 
tory in 1822, only 15 beaver and 18 otter skins, 
with a comparatively meager number of less val- 
uable pelts were secured. — Amer. State Papers, 
Vol. VI., p. 208. 

t Ramsay Crooks, giving his views as to the 
failure of the factory system, writes in 1822: " The 
factories have been furnished with goods of a 
kind not suitable to the Indians, unless the com- 
mittee should be of opinion that men and 
women's coarse and fine shoes, worsted and cot- 
ton hose, tea, Glauber salts, alum and antibilious 
pills, are necessary to promote the comfort or 
restore the health of the aborigines; or that green 
silk, fancy ribands, and morocco slippers are in- 
dispensable to eke out the dress of our ' red 
sisters.' " — Amer. State Papers, ji. 329. 



1^8 Under the Ame?'ican Flag. 

Bay he describes as containing from forty- 
five to forty-eight families, all profess- 
ing to be subjects of Great Britain, who 
are ruled by from ten to twelve traders, 
and recommends an unqualified expulsion 
of the latter from the place.* 

The suggestion was, however, never 
acted upon. Astor's company continued 
to flourish, and the substantial homes of the 
traders bade defiance to the irate govern- 
ment official. The islanders of Michilli- 
mackinac were sharply dealt with, and a 
rigid examination made as to their En- 
glish proclivities during the war, but it 
was not so with the Green Bay royalists, 
who, easy-going and adaptable to circum- 
stance, were let off" after taking oath 
that the " protection of our government 
being entirely withdrawn from this dis- 
trict of country, the inhabitants were 
compelled to yield to the tyranny and 
caprice of the reigning power and its 
savage allies."t 

■^Amer. State Papers, Vol. YI., p. 360. 
fAmer. State Papers, Vol. TV., p. 711. 

The form of oath as taken by the first sheriff 
of Brown County was as follows : 

" I do solemnly swear and declare that I will 
favor from this time forward and support the 
Constitution of the United States of America, 



Under the American Flag, i^g 

There is no more interesting study than 
that of tracing in the gradual develop- 
ment of a new country the influences 
that have brought it into a state of nine- 
teenth century civilization. In Green Bay, 
as in all villages where the French Cana- 
dian element predominated, there was a 
gayety, a carelessness for the morrow and 
enjoyment of the present with a noticeable 
lack of steady, practical purpose. Yet, al- 
though volatile and fond of ease, the bet- 
ter class of inhabitants were appreciative 
of the benefits of education, and the first 
crude attempt toward the establishment 
of schools was largely due to their in- 
fluence. As early as 1791, we find that 
Jacques Porlier acted as tutor in the fam- 
ily of his employer, Pierre Grignon, but 
not until 1817 was the first regular school 
opened in Green Bay. It was taught by 
Monsieur and Madame Carron, educated 
French people who were detained in the 
hamlet for a few months on their journey 
to St. Louis. In the autumn of that vear 



and that I do absolutely and entirely renounce 
and abjure all fidelity to every foreijiii power, 
State, or sovereignty, particularly to the King of 
the United Kingdom of Great Britain. 

'* George .Toiin>ston. 
"25 July, year of our Lord 1821." 



i6o Under the Americaii Flag. 

the following petition, written in English 
and French, was circulated : 

It is proposed to open a school or seminary 
by Thomas S. Johnson, of Onondaga St., New 
York, for teaching reading, writing, arithmetic 
and the EngUsh language, in the vicinity of Green 
Bay, for the space of nine months from date, 
opening the Schoole as soon as may be; he to be 
provided with a suitable house and fuel at the 
expense of the subscribers. He agrees to be at 
all times in a situation to receive his pupils at 
such periods as may best serve his patrons, as also 
to disperse them Sundays excepted; he is like- 
wise to do all things customary for those in his 
profession and promote with all his means the 
object of his employers. 

We, therefore, the undersigned, agree to pay 
the T. S. Johnson aforesaid the sum of five dollars 
to be paid at the expiration of each quarter for 
such tuition. 

Signed, 

John Bowyer, Louis Grignon, 

Wm. Whistler, John Lawe, 

Richard Pritciiard, etc^ 

Thirty-three children from the fort and 
village attended the Green Bay "Semi- 
nary," but the inborn dislike toward 
everything American asserted itself even 
among these youngsters. The oddly 
dressed little natives who Avere brought 
across the river each morning for the 

* Wis. Hist. Colls., Vol. XII. 



Under the American Flag. i6i 

day^s schooling, taunted their companions 
from the garrison with being Bostonians, 
or Yankees, and fierce squabbles were 
often the result. This experiment in ed- 
ucation, not proving successful, was relin- 
quished at the expiration of a few months, 
and no further attempt made in this di- 
rection for some years. 

A change almost imperceptible at the 
time was taking place, and the slow-mov- 
ing current of life in the little voyageur 
hamlet was quickened by the more pro- 
gressive spirit of the Atlantic states. 
Each sailing vessel now brought settlers 
from the east, foremost among them be- 
ing Robert Irwin, Jr., in 1817 ; and two 
years later Daniel Whitney, of New Hamp- 
shire, who, having visited the Bay in 1816, 
was favorably impressed with its desira- 
bility as a place for trade. In 1822-23, 
Robert Irwin, Sr., and his younger son, 
Alexander, also took up their residence in 
Green Bay. Each of these men at once took 
a prominent place in the mercantile and 
social life of the town, and through all 
subsequent years continued to be ranked 
among its best citizens. At about the 
same time came Ebenezer Childs and the 



i62 Under the American Flag. 

Dickinson brothers, Joseph and WilHam, 
sturdy pioneers, and Albert G. Elhs, emi- 
nent as an earl}^ educator, and afterward 
Surveyor General of the new Territory of 
Wisconsin. 

The homes of the new-comers were 
built on that fair and smiling slope where 
to-day lies the Town of Allouez, com- 
manding a broad sweep of river, and a 
glimpse of the blue, misty bay in the dis- 
tance. Eastward a tangle of dark forest 
stretched unbroken to the mj^sterious 
"Manitou" — a stream with which so many 
grim legends were associated, that it was 
dreaded by the Indians and the super- 
stitious among the habitants.* 

Prominent in the landscape, guarding 
the entrance to Fox River, was Fort Howard 
with its stockade of timber thirty feet high, 
enclosing barracks which faced three sides 
of a quadrangle. This formed a fine parade 
ground. There were block houses, mount- 
ing guns at the angles, and separate quarters 
for the commanding officer; houses for 



*The Indians in canoeing on this river always 
propitiated the spirit that haunted it by casting 
overboard an offering of tobacco. 



•53 

o 



I »3 



1>J0U^'* 





Under the American Flag. i6^ 

the surgeon and quartermaster being con- 
structed outside the pickets.''' 

The garrison formed a nucleus, around 
which gathered all that was best in the 
social life of the little town. Colonel Mil- 
ler was succeeded in command by Major 
Zachary Taylor, famous in after years as 
General-in-Chief of the army during the 
early part of the Mexican war, and later 
as President of the United States. When 
stationed at Fort Howard, his family con- 
sisted of his wife and three children, 
among them the little daughter, Xnox, 
afterward the first wife of Jefferson Davis, 
to whom she was married, against the 
wishes of her parents, when he was a 
young lieutenant and she only seventeen. 
The major's quarters were handsomely fur- 
nished, and as complete in their appoint- 
ments as was possible in a frontier post of 
that period, some pieces of rare old furni- 
ture and china sold on the removal of the 
family to Fort Crawford at Prairie du 
Chien being yet in the possession of early 
settlers. 

In 1819, Colonel Joseph Lee Smith as- 
sumed command of the garrison, and at 

^Schoolcraft'B Journal, 1821. 

12 



1 66 Utider the American Flag. 

once expressed dissatisfaction with the site 
selected for the fort by Major Gratiot. 
After persistent importunity, in 1820 he 
received permission to remove the troops 
three miles farther up the river on the 
east side, and half a mile from the shore^ 
assigning as reason for the change, the low,, 
sandy situation of Fort Howard, w^hereas 
his choice Avould command a broader 
outlook and better means of defense. Col- 
onel Smith determined to build permanent 
fortifications at this point, and soldiers 
w^ere detailed to quarry stone for the pur- 
pose at Des Peres Rapids, near the site of 
the old mission of St. Francis Xavier. The 
removal was, how^ever, only temporary, for 
after two years of occupancy Camp Smitli 
was condemned as undesirable for a 
military post, and its garrison returned to 
their old quarters at Fort Howard. 

While the troops were stationed at Camp 
Smith (1820 to 1822), there had been drawn 
to the neighborhood all the usual following 
of a camp. Between the stockade and river 
a number of log trading cabins were built, 
half in and half out of the bank, the logs 
smoothed off on the inside and chinked wdth 
mud, which rendered them w^arm and com- 



Under the Americaji Flag. j6y 

fortable during the long, severe winter. 
That part of the cabin devoted to family use, 
often not more than one room, was furnished 
with primitive simplicity : Indian mats 
covered the floor, while the scanty furni- 
ture was usually put together by the 
village carpenter. A slight partition di- 
vided this living room from the shop, 
where was displayed a heterogeneous 
assortment of dry goods, groceries, rude 
farming implements, and household uten- 
sils ; while somewhere in the rear, always 
on tap, w^ere barrels of rum and whisk}^ 
The stock of merchandise was not large, 
yet, from such as it was, the village belle 
and officer's wife had to make selections, 
carrying home their purchases tied in a bit 
of calico, or a red cotton bandana purchased 
for the purpose, for wrapping paper was 
unknown. These "shanties," as they were 
called, ultimately gave name to the group 
of houses that in time sprang up around 
the spot, and the historic soubriquet of 
Shantytown still clings to the place, despite 
all efforts made to change it for the more 
aristocratic Menomineeville or Bellevue. 
There was no clergyman of any de- 
nomination in the region during this 



i68 Under the American Flas^. 



■6 



period, and Sunday was spent by the 
villagers in exchanging visits ; while the 
military furnished its quota of gayety in 
martial music, parades, or marching back 
and forth between the camps, to the sound 
of fife and drum. Martial law prohibited 
the sale of liquor to enlisted men, and 
various Avere the devices resorted to for 
smuggling intoxicants into the barracks. 
Soldiers' wives frequently procured the 
coveted drink by slipping canteens into 
large tin buckets and covering the top 
with maple sugar, which was innocently 
displayed to the challenging sentry and 
allowed to pass. 

Her e, as in all garrison towns in those ear] y 
days, life wagged merrily enough ; the pri- 
vates passing their time between hard work 
and rough recreation, the officers dancing 
with the pretty girls of Shanty to wn at the in- 
formal parties of the settlement, or enter- 
taining the residents at breakfast or din- 
ner, varied by an occasional ball. There 
was little else to relieve the tedium of the 
long interval of more than half the year, 
when Green Bay was almost entirely cut 
off from the civilized world ; when the 
mail arrived from Detroit onlv twice in 



Under the American Flag. j 6(p 

six months, carried by a soldier and de- 
livered at the fort, where it was handed 
over to the quartermaster for distribution. 
The mail carrier was necessarily a man of 
tough fibre and strong nerve, for, bur- 
dened as he was with his pack, mail pouch, 
and loaded musket, he was forced to keep 
on his feet day and night, wading through 
snow so deep at times as to require snow- 
shoes. When overcome with sleep he 
wrapped himself in his blanket and lay 
down in a snow-bank, taking such rest as 
he could with the wolves howling around 
him. 

Moses Hardwick, a discharged soldier, 
commenced carrying the mail in 1817, and 
for seven winters tramped the weary way 
between Green Bay and Detroit.* In 
1824, a private route was established be- 
tween Green Bay and Fort Wayne, a dis- 
tance of three hundred miles, the mail 
being delivered once a month at an 

annual expense of $86. f 

The country Avas in a wild, unsettled 

state ; acts of violence were frequent, al- 

*In 1822, Robert Irwin, Jr., was appointed 
postmaster at Green Bay, and held the position 
for many years. 

fAmer. State Papers, Vol. XV., p. 136. 



2 'JO Under the American Flag. 

though summary punishment was usually 
inflicted upon the offender. The enlisted 
soldiers at the fort were often desperate 
characters, and officers were in danger of 
assassination by their own men in revenge 
for arbitrary punishment, as well as from 
the suspicion and enmity of the Indians. 
In the summer of 1821, the post surgeon, 
William S. Madison, was shot and in- 
stantly killed near the Manitowoc River, by 
a Chippewa Indian concealed in the brush. 
The murderer was captured, taken to De- 
troit, and tried at the September term 
of the Supreme Court. His counsel, 
James D. Doty, denied the jurisdiction of 
the court, alleging that the murder was 
committed in a district of country to which 
the Indian title had not been extinguished, 
and therefore the-United States could not 
take cognizance of the crime, for the Chip- 
pewa and Winnebago nations both being 
sovereign and independent, exercised ex- 
clusive jurisdiction within their respective 
territorial limits ; further, he argued that 
the American government, by repeated 
treaties with the Indians, had acknowledged 
that its dominion extended no further 
than as actual owners of the soil by pur- 



Under the American Flag. lyi 

iihase from the savages ; that the Indians 
must be either citizens of the United 
States, or foreigners ; yet were evidently 
not considered citizens by our government, 
the privileges of our laws and institutions 
not being extended to them, nor had any 
4ict of theirs been construed as treason or 
rebellion. He said they had been regarded 
by French, English, and American gov- 
-ernments as allies, and were not a con- 
quered people.* Various other argu- 
ments were urged by the brilliant young 
iidvocate, but his plea was overruled by 
the court, and Ketauka sentenced to be 
liung at Green Bay, on December 21st, 
1821, The sentence was executed at the 
appointed time and place. 

AVith American occupation came the 
adjustment of land claims; for in the 
successive changes of government there 
had been express stipulation that the Ca- 
nadian habitants should not be disturbed 
in their rights and privileges. As emi- 
gration turned westward, however, their 
farms, embracing the finest sites for build- 
ing or cultivation, became the cause of 

^September Term of Supreme Court, Ketauka's 
Oase. 



J "J 2 Under tJie American Flag. 

much dispute, and the necessity arose for 
fixing permanently the boundaries of 
ownership. Investigation of the claims 
at Green Bay and Prairie du Chien was 
begun in the fall of 1820, by Isaac Lee, a 
specially-appointed government commis- 
sioner. Mr. Lee reached the Bay in Au- 
gust, and the day after his arrival went 
from house to house stating the object of 
his coming, and that all claims should be 
attended to on his return from the Prairie^ 
whither he was then bound. During the 
interim, much discussion was indulged in 
by the old-time land-owners, who, careless 
like all Canadians in obtaining legal land 
titles, must of necessity prove their right 
of possession by verbal testimony only, as 
they were able to produce few deeds made 
out in proper form. The winter was 
spent by Commissioner Lee in hearing- 
testimony, seeking to determine bounda- 
ries, and meeting in familiar intercourse 
the kindly, simple, hospitable people, wha 
so won upon him that the official report, 
which recommended that all the claims 
be allowed, reads like a page from the 
story of Acadia. 
"Since their ancestors were cut off", bv the 



JJjider the American Flag. lyj 

treaty which gave the Canadas to the 
Enghsh, from all intercourse with the 
parent country, the people, both of Green 
Bay and Prairie du Chien, have been left 
until within a few years quite isolated, 
almost without any government but their 
own. Ignorance of their civil rights, care- 
lessness of their land titles, docility, habit- 
ual hospitality, cheerful submission to the 
requisitions of any government that may 
be set over them, are their universal char- 
acteristics. With those who know them the 
quiet surrender of their fields and houses 
upon the demand of those who come osten- 
sibly clothed with authority would consti- 
tute no evidence of the illegality of their 
titles, or the weakness of their claims.'^ 
Many of the claims were, however, dis- 
allowed, the time of occupancy having been 
less than was required by law, which was 
an exclusive and individual possession from 
July, 1796, to March, 1807. Confirmation 
to claimants was also denied when the 
lands under dispute had been immemori- 
ally occupied by the villagers in common, 
or as a common, where their cattle were 
herded, or crops sufficient to supply the 
village harvested.* 

*Amer. State Papers, Vol. IV., ])p. 8()o-4. 



174 



Under the American Flag. 



The old French claims hung fire for 
many years, and were passed down through 
many generations, and the names — Beau- 
pre, La Rose,* Guardipier — still recall the 
days when the land was divided off by 
arpents, and boundary lines were marked 
by trees and indentations in the river 
shore, rather than by the surveyor's stake. 

Great was the excitement at Green Bay 
in 1821, when a steamboat first rounded 




:i^^x^xo^'*^ J^^\ - 



Old Anchor, found in Fox River. 

Grassy Island and dropped anchor in Fox 

River: along, narrow, flimsily-built craft, 

*The La Rose claim took in Ashwaubenon 
Creek. For the legend connected with this spot 
see Wis. Hist. Colls., Vol. XI., pp. 234-7. 



Under the American Flag. 775 

bearing upon her side the legend, "Walk- 
in-the- Water," and commanded by Cap- 
tain Allen. Doubtless the townsfolk 
thought the days of travel in birch canoes 
at an end, but, only a year after, the 
unsubstantial steamer was wrecked on 
Lake Erie, and the people were fain to 
content themselves for many years longer 
with the more primitive schooner or bat- 
eau. 

Travel toward the west had increased 
greatly, and as a military station and im- 
portant fur trading point the little river 
town was frequently a stopping place for 
visitors of note during the brief, bright 
summer.* On the 7th of July, 1820, the 
United States cutter "Dallas" brought Rev. 
Jedidiah Morse, D. D., of New Haven, 
commissioned by President Monroe to 
make a report on the condition of the 
western tribes, in view of the proposed re- 
moval to the west of the New York In- 
dians. 

One month later a government explor- 
ing party, after ninety days of wearisome 

*A letter of 1817 introduces to John La we, 
Lieutenant Bayfield, Royal Navy; Mr. Collins, 
Midshipman, and Lieutenant Reny, members of 
the Geographical Survey. 



I"/ 6 Under the American Flag. 

travel from Detroit by way of Lake Su- 
perior and the Mississippi, arrived at 
Green Bay.* The expedition was led by 
Lewis Cass, Governor of Michigan Terri- 
tory, which at that time embraced the same 
wide domain over which Nicolas Per rot 
held sway under commission of De la 
Barre one hundred and fifty years before. 
Officers and civilians were included in the 
party, and the fine canoes, made especially 
for their use, were well packed with all 
that could make life endurable on a pro- 
tracted and fatiguing trip of this descrip- 
tion. Henry R. Schoolcraft, was of the 
number, as mineralogist, and when the 
Rapides des Peres Avere passed and the ca- 
noes floated in smooth water on the lower 
Fox, the historian was impressed with the 
beauty of the scene and wrote in his journal: 
"The settlement of Green Bay com- 
mences at the little Kakalin, twelve miles 
above the fort, and is very compact from 



* Leaving Detroit tJbey took their way down 
the St. Clair River across Lake Huron to Michil- 
limackinac Then passing through the Sault 8t. 
Marie to Lake Superior, which they explored to 
its western limit, they paddled up the St. Louis 
River and portaged across a distance of six mile& 
to the little stream connecting with Sandy Lake 
and the Mississippi. Map, Schoolcraft's Journal^ 
1821. 



Under the American Flag. 777 

the Rock (Des Peres) rapids. Here we are 
first presented with a view of the fort, and 
nothing can exceed the heauty of the in- 
termediate country, chequered as it is with 
farm houses, fences, cultivated fields, the 
broad expanse of the river, the bannered 
masts of the vessels in the distant bay, and 
the warlike array of military barracks, 
camps and parades. This scene burst sud- 
denly into view, and no combination of 
objects could be more happily arranged 
after our long sojournment in the wilder- 
ness." 

And so, amid the boom of cannon and 
stirring strains from the garrison band, 
the canoes were brought to a landing, 
and the distinguished party, headed by 
his Excellency, the Governor, ascended 
the green embankment to the fort, where 
they were welcomed by Captain William 
Whistler, commandant in charge during 
the temporary absence of Colonel Joseph 
L. Smith.* 



* Joseph Lee Smith was the father of Ephraim 
Kirby Smith, who w^as stationed at Fort Howard 
at diflferent times and was killed in the Mexican 
war ; and of Edmund Kirby Smith, who resigned 
from the U. S. Army to join the Confederate 
service, was promoted to the rank of general, 
and died in 1898. 



CHAPTER yil. 
A Transition Period. 

The boundary lines by which the coun- 
try west of the great lakes was defined 
were, up to 1818, of the vaguest descrip- 
tion, and the handful of white settlers,, 
scattered from Michillimackinac to the 
Mississippi, as independent of territorial 
laws and government as were the savages 
themselves. The earliest known map of 
Lake Michigan and its western inlet. 
Green Bay, made from personal observa- 
sion, was published as accompaniment to 
the writings of Father Dablon in the 
Jesuit Relations of 1670-71, and seems 
marvelously accurate in comparison with 
other maps of that day. On the " Carte 
d'un tres grand pays entre le Nouveau 
Mexique et la mer glaciale," drawn by 
Hennepin, dedicated by him to William 
III., of England, and published in 1697,. 
the name. Green Bay, first appears. In 
tolerably correct form the Baye des Puans 
is traced, while the whole of the peninsula 
extending from the mouth of Fox River 

178 



A Transition Period. lyg 

to Porte de Mort is included under the 
general name of Baye Verte.* 

The fertile valley of the Fox, so rich in 
all that could delight the savage heart, 
was claimed successively by Spain, France 
and England ; at one time belonged to the 
Province of Louisiana ;t in 1778 apper- 
tained to the State of Virginia as part of 
its conquered territory, and in 1787 was 
included in that vast stretch of country 
set off west of the Ohio River, and known 
as the Northwest Territory. In 1800 the 
Green Bay settlement became the property 
of the new Territory of Indiana, and nine 
years later was annexed to Illinois, its 
county-seat, however, remaining at Vin- 
cennes.J When Illinois became a state 
in 1818 her boundaries were cut down to 
the present limits, and Green Bay, with its 
fifty dwelling houses and military garri- 
son, was given to the Territory of Michi- 
gan. 

On the 26th of October, 1818, Brown 
County was organized with the following 
boundaries : North and east by the County 

*Winsor's Narr. and Crit. Hist, of America, 
Vol. IV. 

fHistory of Louisiana, 1763. 

JThwaites's Story of Wisconsin, pp. 109, 195. 



i8o A Transition Period. 

of Michillimackinac and the western 
boundary of Michigan Territory * as the 
latter was estabhshed by the act of Con- 
gress passed January 11, 1805, when In- 
diana was divided into two separate gov- 
ernments ; south by the states of Indiana 
and IlHnois, and west by a hne drawn due 
north from the northern Hmit of the State 
of IlUnois through the middle of the port- 
age between the Fox and "Ouissin" Rivers 
to the County of Michillimackinac. f The 
new county received its name in honor of 
Major-General Jacob Brown, Commander- 
in-chief of the United States Army. 

The first civil appointments under 
United States authority were made b}^ 
Governor Cass on October 27th, 1818, — 
Matthew Irwin, Chief Justice, Com- 
missioner and Judge of Probate ; Charles 
Reaume, Associate Justice and Justice of 
the Peace; John Bowyer, Commissioner; 
Robert Irwin, Jr., Clerk ; George Johnston, 
Sheriff. Major Irwin did not long re- 
main in office, the constant friction between 
him and the traders making him un- 

*This line followed closely the present state 
line of Michigan. — Henry S^ Baird, Wis. Hist. 
Colls., Vol. IV., p. 198. 

fTerritorial Laws of Michigan, Vol. I., p. 327. 



A Transition Period. iSi 

popular with the Canadian inhabitants ; 
while Judge Reaume's peculiar methods 
of arbitration were much ridiculed by the 
Yankees, and of the first American settlers 
each has his jest at the expense of the 
quaint old man. Soon after the return of 
Governor Cass to Detroit, in 1820, another 
commission reached Green Bay, naming 
Jacques Porlier as Chief Justice of the 
county court, with John Lawe as Assist- 
ant Judge. This selection gave general 
satisfaction, both appointees being highly 
esteemed in the communitv. 

The " Coutume de Paris," heretofore in 
use throughout the " Province of Upper 
Canada," was not formally annulled until 
the year 1821,* when it was superseded 
by the Laws of Michigan Territory, and 
one of the first acts of Judge Porlier was 
to patiently translate into French for his 
own use, the new code, for, although able 
to read English, he could speak only his 
native tongue. The American colonists 
were prone to make merry when the judge 
was called upon to unite in marriage two 
of their number. With conscientious ex- 
actitude he would read the entire service in 



^Territorial Laws of Michigan, Vol. L 
13 



i82 A Transi/iofi Period. 

English, though not one word could be un- 
derstood, excepting the finale, that the 
pair were married according to the laws 
of the United States. 

From this time forward, Green Bay re- 
quired no less than three justices and a 
county judge to adjust the differences 
arising from the new and changing order 
of things. None of them were lawyers, 
and their jurisdiction, both civil and 
criminal, was limited ;* they were obliged 
to enter upon the duties of their several 
offices without formulas to refer to, or 
precedents of proceedings, and it is not 
surprising that the legal documents of that 
day are without much form and the court 
records entirely missing. f The Supreme 
Court of Michigan, consisting of three 
judges, held its sessions semi-annually at 
Detroit ; thither criminals were conveyed 
for trial, and controversies involving large 
amounts were there adjudicated.^ 



^Recollections of Henry S. Baird, in Wis. Hist. 
Colls., Vol. IV., p. 209. 

fJohn H, Lockwood, in Wis. Hist. Colls. ^ 
Vol. II. 

tRecollections of Henry S. Baird, in Wis. Hist. 
Colls., Vol. IV., p. 209. 

The first court held in Brown County of 



A Trajisition Period. iSj 

On February 1st, 1823, James Duane 
Dot}^ was appointed additional Judge for 
the Territory of Michigan, with a yearly 
salary of twelve hundred dollars; his jur- 
isdiction to extend over the counties of 
Mackinac, Brown and Crawford. This 
included all of Michigan not embraced in 
the lower peninsula ; the entire tract after- 
ward comprised in the State of Wisconsin ; 
and the country north of the St. Croix 
River, and east of the Mississippi to lati- 
tude 49°, now under the government of 
Minnesota. 

The first term of the newly-organized 
court was held at Mackinac in July, 1823, 
Judge Doty being at that time just twenty- 
three years of age. He was a man of 
striking presence, so magnetic in conver- 
sation that he carried his listeners with 
him, and was considered a dangerous 
rival by his political opponents. 

Under Doty's administration the civil 
authority promptly rose to the first dig- 
nity. He procured the establishment of 



which any record is preserved was a special 
session of the County Court, July 12th, 1824, 
Jacques Porlier, Chief Justice ; John Lawe and 
Henry Brevoort, Associates. — Address ofM. L. 
Martin before State Hist. Society 1851. 



184 ^ Tra?isiiion Period. 

the County Seat at Shantytown, or, more 
properly, Menomineeville, where a court 
house, which served also as a jail, was 
erected on the river bank.* It was an 
ordinary log cabin, and here the first 
court convened on October 4th, 1824, the 
Grand Jury holding its deliberations in 
the court-room. The prosecuting attorney 
was Henry S. Baird, who, the year previ- 
ous, had settled at the Bay, was admitted 
to the bar at this term of court, and was 
the first lawyer to practice west of Lake 
Michigan. 

This first session of the United States 
Circuit Court was a memorable one ; for 
Judge Doty at that time charged the 
grand jury to make special inquiry in re- 
lation to persons living with Indian wives 
to whom they had not been married ac- 
cording to church or civil law. Thirty- 
six bills of indictment were brought in, 
and the offenders notified that they must 
be married in proper form and produce 
certificate of the fact or stand a trial. f 



^This building stood west of the line of large 
poplar trees at the entrance to the Kellogg stock 
farm. 

t Child's Recollections. Wis. Hist. Colls., 
Vol. IV., p. 161. Address of M. L. Martin, 1851. 



A Trafisitioji Period. 18^ 

This decisive action on the part of the 
court toward the improvement in moral 
tone of the community, although in 
the end salutary, created at the time in- 
tense indignation among the habitants, 
and was even severely censured by new- 
comers. Marriages entered into accord- 
ing to the Indian custom before wit- 
nesses, were now declared invalid, and the 
children of such unions illegitimate. Much 
litigation grew out of this decree in suc- 
ceeding years, and when brought to the 
test, many of these contracts were pro- 
nounced legal by decision of the courts. 

Until superseded by David Irvin, in 
1832, Doty continued to discharge his 
onerous duties. It was not easy to inaugu- 
rate law and order in this far-away dis- 
trict ; to create sheriffs, clerks, and jurors 
out of half-breeds, Indian traders, and voy- 
ageurs ; but tact, patience, and perseverance 
prevailed, and good government gradually 
emerged from this chaotic transition pe- 
riod. 

Judge Doty took up his residence at 
Menominee ville, and in 1825 built the first 
frame house seen in this section of coun- 
try : a large, two-story structure, afterwards 



J 86 A TraJisition Period. 

purchased (1827) by government for an In- 
dian agency house, and occupied by Major 
Henry B. Brevoort, third appointee to the 
office. Still another style of architecture 
attempted by the Judge at this time was 
the queer stuccoed dwelling built partly 
into the side hill, just north of his first resi- 
dence, long called the Jones place, where 
he lived a number of years. In 1827 he 
induced his young cousin, Morgan L. Mar- 
tin, to migrate westward and open a law 
office in the village. 

Doty's successor, David Irvin, was a 
stately Virginia gentleman, with many 
whims and peculiarities, as learned in the 
knowledge of dogs and horses as in the 
law, yet attentive to duty, and without in- 
trigue or deception. It was said by the 
wags, that in order to win a case before 
the Judge, one must praise his horse, 
Pedro, and dog, York. During Judge 
Irvin's term of office, he made his home 
in Virginia or Ohio, when not holding 
court, and it was questioned whether a 
non-resident could legally retain so respon- 
sible an office in the Territory. The peo- 
ple of Green Bay petitioned President Jack- 
son to make another appointment, but the 



A Transition Period. i8(^ 

petition was not recognized and Irvin 
held the judgeship until the formation of 
Wisconsin Territory.* 

Mercantile interests of the town, during 
its first decade, continued to center in the 
peltry traffic, Americans as well as Creoles 
finding it to their profit to engage in the 
pursuit. The early traders, Lawe, Grig- 
non, and Jacques Porlier, although agents 
of the American Fur Company, had worked 
independently of each other until in 1821 a 
co-partnership was formed by advice of 
Ramsay Crooks, who promised to aid the 
firm by all means possible. Goods furnished 
by the larger corporation were brought 
from Mackinac, and their value returned 
in peltries, together with a detailed state- 
ment of the amount and distribution of 
property received. 

The custom of giving credits to Indians 
dated back to the days of Nicolas Perrot, 
but the Astor Company, while continuing 
the practice, systematized trade to a remark- 
able degree. The amount to which an In- 



* In the Probate Court John Lawe held office 
from 1823 to 1829, when Alex. J. Irwin was ap- 
pointed register of probate. In 1838 the office 
was held by Charles C. P. Arndt.— Minute Book 
Brown County Court. 



I go A Traiisitiofi Period. 

dian hunter was trusted by the trader 
was from forty to fifty dollars at cost price, 
upon which a gain of about one hundred 
per cent, was expected, so that the annual 
amount brought in by the hunter to pay 
his credits, should have been between 
eighty and one hundred dollars in value.* 
Utmost exactness was required of those in 
the company's employ ; the French trad- 
ers not infrequently receiving back their 
carefully-prepared reports with the curt 
request that they be made more intelligi- 
ble, as it would be impossible in their 
present shape to close the accounts in the 
company's books. 

Individually, the traders were already 
heavily in debt to the corporation for goods 
purchased in preceding years, and matters 
did not improve under the new arrange- 
ment. Accustomed to the old, careless 
methods of trade, the firm was no match 
for the keen, scheming capitalists who 
gradually gained possession of the broad 
acres afterward included in the plat of 
Astor. Much Green Bay property belong- 
ing to the French traders was swallowed up 



^Turner's "Character and Influence of the Fur 
Trade in Wisconsin," p. 89. 



A Ti'ansition Period. igr 

by the great monopoly, and land in Canada, 
deeded to Charles de Langlade by the 
English government, was also absorbed ; 
until in 1835, Ramsay Crooks writes that 
the last of the Canadian inheritance has 
been handed over to the American Fur 
Company.* 

At this time, and for years after, John 
Lawe held in many respects foremost rank 
among the colonists. A large hospitality, 
generous mode of living, and almost im- 
perial sway over the Indians, gave him 
high popularity and influence. ''His 
home,, a large one-story building, with 
many additions, stood near the river, and 
a path led from it through the grass to the 
beach. The ceilings were very low and 
the windows small, so small that when the 
Indians came peering in, the room was 
almost darkened. t An indescribable air of 
mystery hung over the place, there was a 
dreamy appearance about the whole. Then 
all around the house and store stood In- 
dians waiting to trade off their peltries. One 



^MS. letter of Kamsay Crooks to M. L. Martin 

tMrs. Baird, ''Contes dii Temps passe," in the 
Green Bay Gazette, 1887. Judge Lawe's bouse 
stood just north of D. H. Grignon's residence, 
corner of Jefferson and Porlier Streets. 



jg2 A T7'aiisitio7i Period. 

might sit in that house and imagine all 
sorts of things not likely to happen." 

North of Judge Lawe's residence, close to 
the water's edge, stood the roomy log trad- 
ing house, where were the great scales 
used in weighing peltry packs — the plat- 
forms fully five feet square, suspended by 
heavy iron chains, and so nicely adjusted 
as to give exact weight from a half pound 
up to several hundred. 

These buildings, with the ones occupied 
by descendants of the De Langlade family, 
at that time (1821) composed the whole 
of Green Bay proper. 

Starting at the Langlade residence and 
following closely the river shore, ran the 
well-worn Indian trail, leading to the 
lower country, and facing upon this a 
school-house* was erected in 1821, John 
Baptiste Jacobs being installed as teacher. 
He was followed by Mr. Douglas, a well-ed- 
ucated employe of the American Fur Com- 
pany. In March, 1823, Amos Holton, a law- 
yer from the East, assumed charge of the 
school. He had acted as counsel in the 
trial of a soldier who had assassinated his 



■^ This school house stood a few rods southwest 
of Mrs. M. L. Martin's residence. 



A Transition Pei'iod. igj 

superior officer, and being winter-bound 
at the Bay, with an abundance of lei- 
sure at his disposal, agreed to teach for 
one quarter, comprising a period of twelve 
weeks, the price of tuition to be four dol- 
lars per capita. The small log school- 
room, lighted by its one window, was fur- 
nished with benches alone — desks being 
an undreamed-of luxury — and the curric- 
ulum adopted most limited, yet the 
dominie was a gentleman, and, accord- 
ing to the testimony of a contemporary, 
taught his pupils polite manners as well 
as the rudiments of learning. Soon af- 
terwards this school-house was abandoned 
for a building* larger and more accessible 
to the youth of Shantytown, and Captain 
Daniel Curtis, an ex-army officer, became 
schoolmaster, t He reports the "Schollars" 
as being destitute of books, adding that 
"three dozen spelling books and six Mur- 
ray's grammars will be necessary, and the 
sooner we are provided with them the 



■'^This school-house stood near the present 
residence of Thomas McLean. 

fCaptain Curtis's daughter Irene married Gen- 
eral Rucker, U. S. A., and their daughter became 
the wife of General Philip H. Sheridan. Mrs. 
Curtis was killed by lightning, while living in the 
barracks at Camp Smith, 



194 



A Transitioji Period. 



better for the school generally." Curtis 
taught for about a year, after which A. 
G. ElHs took the school for a short time. 

At Fort Howard, Colonel Smith had 
been succeeded, in 1821, by Colonel Mnian 
Pinkney, and during his command the 
first treaties were concluded for purchase 
of land from the Menominees and Winne- 
bagoes, preparatory to the removal of the 
New York Indians, the documents being 
signed, sealed, and delivered in his pres- 
ence.* He in turn was superseded by 
Colonel John McNeil,t a strict disciplina- 
rian, yet fond of social enjoyment. Under 
his rule a fine mess-room was constructed, 
sixty feet in length, with smaller rooms 
adjoining. These became known as the 
assembly rooms, and were formally opened 
on December 18th, 1822, with a large 
dancing party. 

The holiday season, always celebrated 
with much festivity by the habitants, was 
this year especially gay, Colonel McNeil 
contributing his share to the general mer- 
riment by the issue of invitations for a 
dinner and ball. The long table was laid 
for one hundred guests, and the menu, to 

* Articles of Treaty made at Green Bay, 1821. 
t A brother-in-law of President Pierce. 



A Transition Period. ig^ 

which they sat down at four o'clock, in- 
cluded all varieties of fish for w^hich the 
waters of the bay were famous, with veni- 
son, bear's meat, porcupine, and other 
game then in season. At six o'clock the 
guests rose from table and dancing began, 
lasting until the early hours of the morning. 

A masquerading party of the present 
day is not more bizaire in costume than 
was that company assembled in the soft 
glow of the candlelight ; the scant skirt) 
short, full waist, and enormous sleeves of 
New York fashion, contrasting oddly with 
the broadcloth petticoat and moccasins of 
the native belle ; yet the grace and vivac- 
ity of the Creole girls, to which were added 
the accomplishments gained in Canadian 
convents, made them often outshine the 
ladies in garrison. 

An invitation for one of these assem- 
blies is addressed to " Reverend Mr. Will- 
iams " and reads as follows : 

The gentlemen of the Mess ask the honour of 

the Rev'd Mr. Williams's company at a ball to 

be held at the Mess House, on the evening of the 

8th inst. 

Capt. I. S. Nelson, 

Lieut. H. H. Loring, 

Lieut. A. M. Weight, 

Fort Howard, Jan'y, 1823. Managers. 



ig6 A Trans itio?i Period. 

Private theatricals were also suggested 
by the commandant, a first ambitious at- 
tempt being made in the old English 
comedy, "She Stoops to Conquer." There 
was no scenery, except such as could be 
improvised, but the performance was 
highly appreciated, the young lieutenants, 
Loring and Hunt, scoring a great success — 
one in the double role of Mrs. Hardcastle 
and the Squire, the other as the fascinat- 
ing Miss Hardcastle. 

In 1824, General Hugh Brady, a brave 
officer and gallant gentleman, succeeded 
to the command. He had won distinction 
in the battles of Chippewa and Niagara, a 
wound received in the latter engagement 
having left him with a permanent lame- 
ness. Soldierly and somewhat austere in 
bearing, the general yet entered with 
youthful zest into the gayeties of fort life, 
often expressing admiration for the ladies 
and comparing them to ships under 
full sail as they moved in stately dignity 
through the contra dance, passing down 
the long avenue of dancers to such old- 
time tunes as "Monie Musk," "Two Sisters," 
"Two Dollars in My Pocket," and "Cheat 
the Lady." 



A Trajisitio)i Period. igy 

A post school had been organized under 
Colonel McNeil, and A. G. Ellis engaged as 
teacher. Through the active efforts of 
General Brady a building was erected for 
the purpose and the attendance increased 
to fifty pupils, a limited number of citizens' 
children being received with those from 
the fort. Military discipline was observed ; 
at three in the afternoon the officer of the 
day made a visit of inspection ; while at 
the Friday resume of study, General Brady 
and staff were present, listened to the ex- 
ercises, and examined the reports. 

At the expiration of a year General 
Brady gave place to Major William Whist- 
ler,* who was identified with Fort Howard 
for a longer period than any other officer, 
and with his large family of beautiful 
daughters added much to the social pleas- 
ures of garrison life. 

Up to 1825 there had been no public 
means provided for crossing Fox River. 
In June of that year, John P. Arndt, a 
Pennsylvanian of good, old Dutch family, 
who had come to the West in 1823, took 



*Whistler was captain under Col. Pinkney, and 
had but recently been promoted to the rank of 
Major when placed in command. 

14 



igS A Transition Period. 

out a license to maintain a ferry some dis- 
tance south of the fort. Mihtary law, how- 
ever, hd,d for so long governed the com- 
munity that a license given by civil author- 
ity was not recognized by Major Whistler, 
who issued an order forbidding any pas- 
senger to land on the west shore without 
first obtaining a permit from the com- 
manding officer.* A guard was stationed 
to enforce compliance, and several persons 
attempting to cross were arrested and put to 
much inconvenience. At last Arndt him- 
self, to end the trouble, crossed, was seized 
as he had anticipated, and carried to the 
fort. When released he brought suit 
against Major Whistler for false imprison- 
ment, and obtained judgment of fifty dol- 
lars and costs : the court ruling that Fox 
River was a public highway, on which a 
ferry could be run at any point without 
military interference. The guard was 
withdrawn, and for years a ferry boat was 
rowed from Point Pleasant, where stood 
Judge Arndt's residence, to the opposite 
shore. 



* The military reservation included a tract of 
land opposite Judge Arndt's house. 



A Trafisitiou Period. j <^g 

One of Green Bay's early Probate 
Judges,* Arndt, also kept the village 
inn, remodeled from the old De Langlade 
house. It was constructed of square 
hewn logs, so nicely adjusted that it seemed 
one solid block, with never a touch of 
paint, stucco or whitewash, but always re- 
taining its soft gray color, so mellow and 
restful to the eye. Barely a story and a 
half high, its length was quite a hundred 
feet. Over the door of the main entrance 
was a sort of hatchment, Avhich caught 
the first morning sunlight as it glim- 
mered through a line of luxuriant lilac 
shrubs, that stretched along the dwelling's 
entire front. There was no hall or vesti- 
bule, the outside door opening direct to 
one of the living rooms. On the western 
side a long, low-roofed piazza extended 
the length of the main building, and sit- 
ting under its pleasant shadow one could 
see all that was passing between fort and 
village, for traffic and pleasure alike took 
the river highway. In the center a door 
opened to the one large apartment of the 
house, used as parlor or reception-room, 

*1842 and several terms afterwards. — Minute 
Book, Brown County Court : Brown Countv, 
1824 to 1857. 



200 A Traiisitioti Period. 

plainly furnished in old-fashioned style ; 
a lounge covered with bright chintz, a gen- 
erous-sized sideboard, a two-story, cast-iron, 
Canadian stove, a mirror hung over a small 
table. From the adjoining dining-room, 
which occupied the very center of the 
building, an enclosed stairway led to the 
low-ceilinged upper story. There were 
queer little nooks, crannies and dusky 
passageways that one was obliged to travel 
through in reaching the most attractive 
part of the dwelling, the great, generous 
kitchen, rallying point alike for visitors 
and family. So many were the windows 
on the river side that wdien a clear sunset 
shown on the liliputian panes it gave the 
impression of being entirely made of glass. 
An immense fire-place and huge brick 
oven nearly filled the south end of the 
room, wdiile larders, store-rooms, and mys- 
terious little pantries were here, there and 
everywhere. No swinging crane or crooked 
pot hooks ever held more delicious menus 
for the inner man, nor oven a richer store 
of snowy loaves ; for the mistress of this 
old-time hostelry inherited all the thrifty 
instincts and excellent housewifery of her 
Holland ancestors. 



A Transition Period. 201 

In those good old days, not to be a not- 
able provider and dief de cuisine was con- 
sidered a serious misfortune, for unexpected 
guests came often, trained servants were not 
to be had, and not only were dainties for 
the table prepared by the house-mistress, 
but she must be an adept as well in the 
plainer branches of culinary skill. The 
Indians were the purveyors of the set- 
tlement, bringing to the door all sorts 
of fish and wild game. Each French 
family had its own dusky retainers, who 
idled about the premises and partook of 
the good cheer as in feudal times. 

Although the white population was far 
outnumbered by savages, no fear was ever 
entertained of treachery, but in 1 827 trouble 
arose among the Winnebagoes which 
threatened serious consequences. A feeling 
of discontent had for some time been grow- 
ing among the various tribes ; Sacs and 
Foxes bitterly resented the occupation by 
whites of the rich mineral lands about 
Galena ; while the Winnebagoes, ever a 
capricious, mischief-brewing people, whose 
dissatisfaction with the provisions of a 
treaty made at Prairie du Chien two 
years before had been rankling in their 



202 A Transition Period. 

restless minds, only required slight provo- 
cation for a hostile outbreak. This was 
furnished in the reported murder of two 
Winnebago prisoners by the soldiers at 
Port Snelling. A council was straightway 
called, and Red Bird, a young chief of 
some local celebrity, universally trusted 
by the pioneers of the region, was selected 
with two other braves to carry out a 
scheme of revenge in accordance with the 
savage code of justice. 

The first scalps were taken on the out- 
skirts of the Prairie, at the cabin of a half- 
breed squatter, where the Indians, with 
customary craft, broke bread with their 
unsuspecting victims in apparent friend- 
ship, then, when opportunity offered, 
swiftly and stealthily executed their mer- 
ciless purpose. The mother, with one 
child, escaped and flying to the village, 
rehearsed the traged}^, identifying the 
murderers, while these last, adorned with 
the gory prizes so treacherously gained, 
sought the remainder of their band, which 
was encamped on the Mississippi River. 
This cruel deed was only the preliminary 
to other outrages, which spread a panic 
throughout the threatened district. Ac- 



A Transition Period. 20 j 

live preparations were made by the set- 
tlers for defense ; Indian runners were dis- 
patched across country to summon miH- 
tary aid from Fort Snelling and Fort 
Howard, and as the latter post was but 
slenderly garrisoned, the commandant, 
Major Whistler, called upon the citizens for 
iissistance. William Dickinson and Ebe- 
nezer Chi Ids promptly recruited a com- 
pany from the Stockbridge and Oneida 
Indians ; the volunteer militia was mus- 
tered in, with George Johnston as captain, 
and all, under the command of Major 
Whistler, started for the scene of action. 
En route a council was held at Butte des 
Morts, when the Winnebagoes were threat- 
ened with annihilation should they refuse 
to give up Red Bird and his accomplices 
to justice. Notification was sent to scat- 
tered bands of the offending tribe, and 
Whistler moved on, again encamping at 
the Fox-Wisconsin portage. On the day 
following, a squad of thirty warriors was 
seen approaching the camp. In their 
midst walked Red Bird bearing a flag of 
truce, singing in weird, melancholy ca- 
dence, his death song. His dress was of 
soft, white doeskin, jacket and leggings or- 



2 04 ^ Transitioji Period. 

namented with fringe of the same mate- 
rial, enriched with hlue beads. Each 
shoulder was decorated with the brilliant 
feathers of the red bird, while collar and 
armlets worked in blue and white wam- 
pum completed the picturesque costume. 
The young chief bore himself proudly^ 
with no consciousness of wrong-doing. 
Advancing tow^ard Major Whistler, he 
stooped, and taking in his hand some 
dust from the plain, with dramatic action 
cast it from him, saying, " I have given 
away my life like that ; I would not take 
it back ; it is gone." Then marching 
briskly up to the commander, breast to 
breast, he surrendered and was taken in 
charge by a file of men, his request that 
he should not be put in irons being re- 
spected. Some months later, when a fatal 
epidemic attacked the prison in which he 
was confined, Red Bird was among its 
victims.* 

But the Indians in the vicinity of Green 
Bay were tractable, requiring no stern 
military discipline to keep them in order. 
Indeed, life at Fort Howard seems to have 
been made up of dancing, card playing, and 

nVie. Hist. Colls., Vol. Y., p. 178. 



A 7 runs it ion Period. 20^ 

flirtation, rather than warhke adventure, 
and no doubt th« younger officers, wearied 
with months of inaction, often longed for 
the call of " Boots and Saddles," and the 
chance to win their spurs in the field. 

The officer who succeeded Major Whis- 
tler was a man whose name is associated 
with many acts of cruelty — Major David 
E. Twiggs. Although a brave officer and 
afterward advanced by his government to 
the rank of general, his brutality caused 
him to be generally detested by the sol- 
diers of his command. One of these, 
William Prestige, resolving to put an end 
to the tyranny, stole into the command- 
ant's apartment one day while he was 
sleeping, intending to put a bullet through 
his brain. The gun missed fire, Twiggs 
sprang up, and with a blow laid the man 
senseless upon the floor. For many 
months daily torture was inflicted upon 
the unhappy assassin, who was purposely 
kept from trial in order that he might 
serve as an example to other unruly sub- 
ordinates. When Prestige's term ot en- 
listment expired he was handed over to 
the civil authorities, tried and convicted. 
Morgan L. Martin, acting district attorney, 



2o6 A Trans itio7L Period. 

and others, who thought the man had suf- 
fered sufficiently, presented his case to 
President Adams, who granted him a par- 
don. In the summer of 1828 Twiggs was 
transferred with his command to the Por- 
tage, where he superintended the erection 
of Fort Winnebago. His place was filled 
by Colonel Wm. Lawrence, who with four 
companies of the Fifth United States In- 
fantry, came by boat from St. Louis, and 
so high was the water that season that the 
loaded barges floated easily across the di- 
viding strip between the Fox and Wiscon- 
sin Rivers.* 

The new corps of officers found imme- 
diate and great favor with the citizens, 
and in the summer ufter their arrival a 
grand ball was given, as a culmination to 
the season's gayety . In a humorous fashion, 
more than fifty years subsequent, a de- 
scription of the haps and mishaps atten- 
dant on this entertainment Avas given by 
Mrs. Bristol, daughter of Major Henry B. 
Brevoort, at that time Indian Agent. 



*Morgan L. Martin, in his Recollections, in 
Wis. Hist. Colls., Vol. XI., says that this first 
suggested to him the idea of connecting the Fox 
and Wisconsin Rivers, thus forming a highway 
for large vessels to the Mississippi. 



A Transition Period. 20"/ 

Marie Brevoort was an exceedingly beau- 
tiful girl, wild as a fawn, tall and grace- 
ful, and over her the Major kept strict watch 
and ward, as an old burgomaster should. 
Courteous and affable in a general way, 
he took on a crusty, gruff manner with any 
young soldier or civilian who ventured 
polite advances to this cherished frau- 
lein. Brave Lieutenant Kirby Smith 
bearded the lion in his den, and won a 
permit to act as escort to Miss Brevoort for 
the coming assembly. At four o'clock in 
the afternoon, Lieutenant Smith promptly 
appeared on the scene to claim his partner? 
and, seated in a small boat named "Pill 
Box," the two were rowed down river. 

Mrs. Bristol thus describes her dress for 
the grand occasion : brocaded lavender 
satin, trimmed with white silk lace, long 
white kid gloves, red slippers, and white 
silk hose. The fine music from the gov- 
ernment band was most inspiriting to the 
dancers, who scarcely heeded the storm 
which began raging without at midnight. 
At one o'clock, as the ladies belonging to 
Shanty town were ready to make their 
adieus to CJolonel Lawrence, the stars were 
shining, and there was a great calm on 



2oS A Transition Period. 

river and shore. The entire company save 
Miss Brevoort and her escort, Lieutenant 
Smith, preferred the large United States 
barge for the trip homeward. The young- 
couple from the Indian Agency decided 
to return as they had come, in the tiny 
" Pill Box," the lady's only protection from 
chill and damp night air, a white lace 
shawl, and large green calash, standing- 
out far from her head. 

An unexpected storm arose in a twink- 
ling. Rain fell in torrents, and wind lashed 
the waves about them to white foam. 
Lightning flashes were so vivid that the 
soldiers lost their bearings in sheer be- 
wilderment, while the small craft they 
were rowing, was tossed about at the mercy 
of the elements ; the men making use of 
boots and hats in bailing the constantly 
filling boat. Each one worked with ener- 
getic force, inspired by danger, keeping 
the skiff afloat, until driven by the wind 
on a sand bar, from whence these toilers of 
the sea were forced to wade ashore. Sunrise 
was just breaking over the agency house, 
Avhen its beautiful daughter, kid slippers 
water-soaked and clay-laden from her two 
miles' walk, her bedraggled finery trailing 



A Transition Period. 



2og 



ilisconsolately behind, appeared before her 
irate father. Lieutenant Smitli was trans- 
ferred to Mackinac in a brief time after 
this unfortunate escapade, or it might have 
had a more romantic sequel. 

Of tlie agency house whence Marie 
Brevoort and the young officer went forth so 
gaylythat July afternoon, there now remains 
only a massive ruined chimney of rough 
stone, overlooking the river. Golden rod, 
purple asters and tall, plumy grasses crowd 
the ample space enclosed 
by the foundation wall ; 
but the house, so full 
of interesting mem- 
ories, was burned 
some fifty years ago. 






Chimney of Agency House, built in 1825. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

The Lost Dauphin. 

A most interesting episode, in varied and 
romantic incident, is that pertaining to the 
Hfe of Eleazer Wilhams ; and whatever 
may be the estimate of the kingly claim 
assumed by him in later years, one cannot 
refuse a dash of enthusiasm in recalling 
his versatile career. Born in an Indian 
cabin in the isolated hamlet of St. Regis ; 
reared in wild Caughnawauga ; full to the 
brim of robust life and animal spirits^ 
hunting, trapping, fishing through dense 
forests from Canada to Lake Champlain ; 
when fourteen years of age he saw for the 
first time the inside of a school-house at 
Long Meadow, Connecticut, where he was 
sent at the suggestion of the Williams' 
family of Massachusetts, to whom he was 
kin. Clever at his books and of most en- 
gaging manners, he was petted and made 
much of by his guardian, Nathanial Ely, 
who said that ^'Lazar" was born for a 
great man and should have an education 
that would prepare him for his station in 

210 



The Lost Dauphin. 211 

life. The Indian lad, who yet looked so 
unlike an Indian — exhibited a grace and 
suavity unusual in a New England village 
of that period, seeming rather to teach 
than to acquire from others the polished 
manners of social life. From the first, 
Eleazer was intended for a missionary 
among the Indians, and as he grew into 
manhood his journal shows a sincere de- 
sire to carry out his religious teaching ; 
but wherever he went, flattery and atten- 
tion were bestowed upon the handsome 
youth until his brain was filled with 
dreams of what the years might bring of 
future greatness. 

His first essay at mission work was 
made just prior to 1812, but during the 
war this was relinquished, and as an 
American spy and bearer of secret dis- 
patches, duties for which he showed a 
special aptitude, he did good service to 
his country.* Then comes his life as 
teacher of the Oneidas in the Mohawk 
Valley, his work being carried on at Oneida 
Castle, the homestead of the old head 
chief, Skenandoah, dead some years before. 



* MS. diary of Eleazer Williame, chief of the 
*' Secret Corps of Observation." 



212 The Lost Dauphin. 

Williams at this time had great in- 
fluence with the Indians, and during his 
stay among the Oneidas persuaded nearly 
three-fifths of the tribe to abjure paganism 
and embrace Christianity. A thorough 
master of the Mohawk language, he 
preached the gospel to his Indian converts 
in their mother tongue, and with such 
enthusiasm that the message, hitherto 
heard only through the misty veil of an 
interpreter, made deep impression on his 
auditors. He so revised the alphabet that 
whereas twenty characters had been in 
use, he reduced the number to eleven, 
making the Mohawk a more perfect lan- 
guage than before, and so simplifying 
it that an Indian child could be taught to 
read in a few lessons.* 

It was about this time that the project 
was set in motion to transfer the New York 
Indians from their restricted reservations 
in the thickly populated Mohawk valley 
to unclaimed lands west of the Great 
Lakes. Commissioner Jedidiah Morse 
gave a favorable report of the tract lying 
along Fox River, and in 1821 Williams, 
who had become deepl}^ interested in the 

* A. G. Ellis, Wis. Hist. Colls., Vol. VII. 



The Lost Dauphitt. 2 ij 

scheme, traveled westward to Green Bay 
with a delegation of Oneidas. Onondagas, 
Tuscaroras, and Stockbridges, their object 
being to treat with the Menominees and 
Winnebagoes for a cession of their terri- 
tory. As a portion of the Oneidas strenu- 
ously opposed the removal, complications 
arose ; but government favored the trans- 
fer, Thomas L. Ogden, principal of the 
New York Land Company, furthered it 
in all possible ways, while Bishop Hobart 
and the Rev. Mr. Kemper, of whom Will- 
iams solicited aid to establish an Indian 
mission at Green Bay, gave cautious en- 
couragement to the enterprise. But, while 
apparently working in the interest of his 
compatriots, Williams cherished at heart 
one of the most daring and comprehen- 
sive plots ever devised : to unite not the 
Oneidas only, but the whole Six Na- 
tions, into a despotic commune — the coun- 
try west of Lake Michigan to be mapped 
out and a large area set off for each tribe — 
the St. Regis, to be located at Green Bay ; for 
this confederation he devised a new form of 
government — never a republic — an Indian 
empire, of which he was to be Chief 
Sachem and King. Such was the startling 

15 



214 The Lost Daiiphm. 

plan originated by this reputed son of the 
half-caste, Thomas Williams, and his 
Indian wife. 

The emigration project matured slowly. 
On the first of September, 1822, Eleazer 
Williams and his assistant, A. G. Ellis, with 
a representation from the Six Nations much 
larger than that of the preceding year, 
entered the mouth of Fox River in the 
staunch, new schooner "Superior." 

" The sun," writes Mr. Ellis, " coming 
up in majestic splendor, gilded the shores 
of the river and the hamlet of Green Bay 
with light and beauty. Both banks, for 
five or six miles, were dotted with the set- 
tlers' cabins which were uniformly white- 
washed with lime, and in the bright morn- 
ing sun, at a mile's distance, shone like 
balls of fire. The scene was a perfect en- 
chantment." 

All the village was astir with expecta- 
tion and excitement, for the arrival of an 
eastern schooner was an event of prime 
importance. To some it brought friends, 
to others supplies, and to all the latest 
news, public and personal, for it was the 
bearer of the mails, not for Green Bay 
alone, but for all the upper country. 



The Lost Dauphin. 21^ 

Williams took possession of the agency 
house, which stood on the north bank of 
Dutchman's Creek, where it empties into 
Fox Eiver. News of his arrival having 
been bruited abroad, the Winnebago and 
Menominee tribes began assembling to 
receive from the New York Indians the 
fifteen hundred dollars in goods guaran- 
teed them at the treaty of the preceding 
year. They gathered to the number 
of tliree or four thousand — a picturesque 
siglit ; the braves in their gay toggery of 
beaded l)uckskin, with gaudy blankets 
hanging loosely from tlie waist, and unen- 
cumbered save by their firearms ; the 
meagre camp equipage and papooses 
packed on small, rough ponies, or carried 
by the unhappy squaws. A village of 
matted lodges sprang up almost in a sin- 
gle night on the level plain north of the 
agency house, where, in presence of Colonel 
Pinkney and other officers from the gar- 
rison, and French residents from the toAvn, 
the council dragged its slow and smoky 
length along. The Winnebagoes almost 
immediately repudiated the treaty, de- 
claring that their land was already over- 
run with white men, and thev had no 



2i6 T/ie Lost Dauphin. 

mind to share with others the little that 
I'emainecl of their once wide territory. 
Yet they lingered around the encampment 
to join in the pow- avows, which made each 
night hideous, and, as a fitting climax to- 
the revelry, consented to give a grand war 
dance for the diversion of the visitors, 
white and copper-colored. 

A circle was formed, the little band of 
white men in the inner ring, while the 
hollow space in center was filled with 
dancers, drummers, and singers. The- 
drum, made from an old keg or hollow 
log, over which had been stretched wet 
deerskin, Avas beaten with ceaseless 
monoton}^, and in addition the players 
used a reed pipe of their own invention, 
not unlike a flageolet, from which they 
drew a plaintive harmony, touching be- 
yond description. On the outside of the 
circle were massed hundreds of savages, 
lying, leaning, standing, daubed with 
paint of every tint, and with one, two, or 
as many as twenty, feathers stuck upright 
in the hair. 

A score of the most stalwart young 
Winnebagoes, without a thread of cloth- 
ing save a breech cloth, painted in 



The Lost Dauphin. 2 ly 

gorgeous colors with circles of red, green, 
and blue around the eyes, and armed 
with spears and tomahawks, began at 
^ given signal the pantomimic descrip- 
tion of war. First the crafty seizing of 
the tomahawk, then the discovery of 
the enemy, the shooting and scalping — 
<ill so well enacted that the spectators 
€ould easily understand the import of 
their wild and savage movements. The 
<3xcitement gradually increased until all 
the participants were in motion, dancing, 
singing, shouting, yelling, dangling me- 
tallic rods ; at one time humming a sort, 
of chant in a low bass monotone, then 
suddenly passing, after a wild, disjointed 
interval, into a sharp scream, made tremu- 
lous by placing fingers on the lips, and 
repeated every two or three minutes- 
With their bodies naked except for the 
<30vering of paint, and their feathered 
<?rowns, they seemed as they darted back 
:and forth brandishing their death weap- 
ons more like demons than men. 

None could endure the sight unap- 
palled, for the Winnebagoes were at that 
time the most warlike of Wisconsin tribes, 
<|uick to revenge fancied injury and re- 



2 18 The Lost Dauphin. 

quiring in recompense five lives for one. 
This was, however, a peaceful exhibition 
of their powers ; with the last war-whoop 
silently and swiftly they moved away, and 
while horror of the weird spectacle still 
thrilled the on-lookers, the camp was struck 
and the Indians were off for the winter 
hunt. 

The Menominees remained, and a con- 
cession was wrung from them which re- 
sulted during ensuing years in much con- 
fusion and dissatisfaction. They agreed 
that the New York Indians might become 
joint possessors with them of their terri- 
tory ; the Oneidas to have a tract of land 
lying about eight miles westward from 
Green Bay ; the Stockbridges, Menominees 
and Brothertowns to be settled on the east 
side of Lake Winnebago. The time now 
seemed ripe for the realization of Will- 
iams's scheme of government, but the man 
himself was too vacillating and lacking in 
straightforward purpose to hold the con- 
fidence of the Indians. Hints of false^ 
dealing were already whispered against 
him, and the kingdom which his brain 
had evolved, eluded his grasp just as it- 
seemed about to materialize. 



X 
o 

d 

03 



a' 

CO 







The Lost Dauphin. 22 r 

Pledged by promises made to the Mis- 
sionary Board, the Menominees, and the 
French inhabitants of Green Bay, to the 
estabhshment of a mission school, Williams 
yet dallied month after month, and it was 
only through the insistence of Mr. Ellis 
that a beginning was finally made. All 
the Creole youth took advantage of this 
educational opportunity, and among the 
pupils was a beautiful girl of fourteen, 
Madeline Jourdain, to whom Williams, in 
his daily visits to the school, gave special 
attention. The home of the Jourdains was 
still standing in 1880, a low, log structure, 
picturesque in its odd proportions;* and 
here in the winter of 1823 occurred the 
marriage of " Priest Williams " and the 
pretty Madeline, who, although solemnly 
betrothed to a young French trader, was, 
in his absence, bartered away by her pa- 
rents, according to tlie custom of the time 
and countrv. 



*The Josepli Jourdain tract cuiitaiiied about 
two acres, situated south of water-works pum})- 
iiig station and fronting' on the river. When the 
plat of Astor was made in 1835, the x\stors had no 
title to this tract and it was not platted. It is now 
a part of Astor, but is in all transfers described 
by metes and bounds. The "Miller house,'' 
Jourdain's former home, stood on Lots 4, 5 and 
f), Block 0. 



22 2 The Lost Dauphin . 

In the autumn of 1825 Williams tcjok his 
Avife, then but sixteen years of age, to New 
York, where her baptism and confirma- 
tion by Bishop Hobart in Trinity Church 
excited almost as vivid a sensation in the 
fashionable world as had that of Pocahon- 
tas in English society two centuries before. 
In the following spring (1826) the ]>ishop 
of New York ordained Williams to the 
priesthood, a ceremony of great interest, 
he being the first of Indian ])lood 
to receive orders in the church. What- 
ever there may have been of romance 
at this epoch in the lives of our hero and 
heroine rapidly dissolved. Only a few 
years and Priest Williams was a wanderer 
on the face of the earth ; a disowned 
clergyman of the Episcopal Church, yet 
holding an occasional religious service in 
dissenting chapels ; false in his pledges to 
the Indians ; recreant to the United States 
government ; his scheme of grandeur and 
imperial dominion a vanished dream. 
For a time he rested in moody discontent 
in his unpretentious farm house on Fox 
River, then was roused to higher ambition 
still. One Avho saw Williams then, de- 
scribes him as an exceptionally fine-looking 



The Lost Dauphin. 2 2j 

man, who might have been taken for a 
Mexican or Spaniard. His complexion 
had decidedly more of the olive than the 
copper hue, and his countenance was grave, 
almost melancholy.* 

What first gave rise to his assumption 
of royalty is not positively knowai. His 
mother declared that the idea was sug- 
gested to him by a party of French officers, 
who, coming from Montreal to Caughna- 
wauga, met him at her home ; told him 
that he looked like the Bourbons ; that 
Louis XVII. , if living, w^ould be about 
Williams's age ; that possibly he, himself, 
might be the lost Dauphin. This 
was, perhaps, the truth, but Williams 
asserted that enlightenment as to his par- 
entage came unexpectedly from another 
and more reliable source. It was in June, 
1841, that the whilom missionary made 
a journey to New York, and, while the 
business which called him there was still 
unfinished, left suddenly and myster- 
iously for the West, on receiving informa- 
tion that the Prince de Joinville, son of 
Louis Philippe, was to visit Green Bay. 
When the steamer "Columbia" with the 



*Mrs. Kinzie's " AVaiibiin.' 



2 24 The Lost Dauphin. 

Prince and his suite on board touched at 
Mackinac, Williams stood ready on the 
wharf to greet the royal guest, and the 
following day they were much together 
in close conversation. 

On their arrival at Green Bay, to 
follow Williams's story, De Joinville urged 
the agreeable clergyman to join him at 
the hostelry given over for the day to 
the distinguished guests. This invitation 
was declined, but at the conclusion of 
'A sumptuous banquet the Prince sum- 
moned Williams to his private apart- 
ment, where, while the gay young French- 
men of the royal retinue caroused in an 
adjoining room, their laughter and merry 
wit penetrating the thin partition, the as- 
tounding revelation was made, that he, 
the poor missionary, w^as no other than 
Louis the Seventeenth of France ; that the 
Dauphin had not died in the tower as was 
reported, but had been brought to Amer- 
ica and placed with an Indian family to 
be reared as one of their own people. 
The Prince then produced a document, 
the purport of which was a solemn abdi- 
cation of the throne of France in favor of 
Louis Philippe b}^ Charles Louis, son of 



The Lost Dauphin. 22 ^ 

Louis the Sixteenth, King of France and 
Navarre, and this was presented to Will- 
iams for signature. Should he consent, 
a^ princely estahlishment in France or 
America, as he preferred, was at his dis- 
posal. The tempting bribe was rejected, 
Williams, as he said, preferring poverty 
and exile to the renouncement of his birth- 
right. 

That an interview really took place be- 
tween the Prince and priest was known at 
the time, but strangely enough not a sylla- 
ble was breathed by the would-be King 
as to what passed between himself and the 
French nobleman until man}^ years after. 
The momentous colloquy over, the royal 
cortege mounted the rough little Canadian 
ponies impressed for their service with 
much laughter and jabbering of French, 
for many of the young officers were totally 
unskilled in horsemanship and their ill- 
assorted steeds, wild as the country in 
which they were reared, threatened each 
moment to over-turn their riders. Leav- 
ing La Baye Verte behind them, the jolly 
company roamed through the country 
pell-mell, passing the first night of their 
novel tour through the wilderness at a 



226 The Lost Dauphin. 

log cabin about a mile distant from Priest 
Williams's own dwelling. 

After De Joinville's return to France, 
a gift of valuable books and finely en- 
graved reproductions from miniatures 
of Louis XVI. and his beautiful queen 
reached the small house at the Little Ka- 
kalin, whose owner already possessed an 
exceptionally interesting library of old and 
curious volumes. There were besides in 
that modest homestead many things that 
would tempt a curio collector of to-day — 
brass and iron fire-dogs of antique design, 
blue and white china, odd old silver and 
quaint pieces of furniture ; while in the 
low attic stood the loom, on which Madam 
Williams taught her bound girls to weave 
the coarse cloth for their wearing apparel. 
Not less interesting were the journals, let- 
ters and sermons, written and preached by 
members of the Williams family in New 
England, dead and gone a century before. 
A diary was kept, morever, by the alleged 
Dauphin himself, which gives no intima- 
tion of state plots or intrigues, but tells 
simply of every-day life on the farm — 
when the family go to the spring sugar 
making — at what date the fields are 



The Lost Dauphin. 2 2"/ 

planted— varied by the account of a visit 
to Green Bay, and an occasional amicable 
discussion with the Rev. Jeremiah Porter. 

It was twelve years after the coming of 
the Prince to Green Bay, the impression 
produced by it and the subsequent corre- 
spondence having long died aw^ay, when 
the subject was revived, and interest in it 
awakened, by the publication of a skit in 
Pufnam^s Magazine entitled, " Have We a 
Bour])on Among Us ?" In Green Bay the 
story was universally ridiculed, for its 
citizens could not believe that prospects so 
brilliant had been refused by a man like 
Eleazer Williams ; yet the proofs brought 
forw^ard to substantiate his claim were in- 
genious, and the article created wide-spread 
interest and much discussion in Eastern 
cities. As soon as the slow^-sailing vessels 
of those days could reach France, the 
family of Louis Philippe were put in pos- 
session of the strange romance, and De 
Joinville, through his private secretary, 
hastened to refute the story of the reputed 
interview, even denying all remembrance 
of such a person as Rev. Eleazer Williams. 

Whether Williams himself believed in 
the truth of his claim it is impossible to tell, 



2 28 The Lost Daiipliin. 

varying accounts being given of the atti- 
tude assumed by him in the matter. The 
following letter written by him to his 
friend, Pierre Bernard Grignon, under 
date of September 21st, 1848, five years 
l^efore the story was brought before the 
public, would seem to show that he either 
feigned belief or was himself deceived : 

" The intelligence I am now to give you is in 
accordance with the Mnt^ I gave you in our last 
interview, which now prove too true. Am I the 
child of the most unfortunate parents ? A de- 
scendant from one of the most unhappy poten- 
tates of Europe ? The secret commissioners from 
Fr — have, in a great measure, confirmed it. Oh^ 
the unhappy and cruel fate of parents ! Can you 
wonder, my friend, I am in distress — yea, agony ? 
The news has seized me with such a poignant 
grief and sorrow as it would require with the 
tongue of an angel and the pen of a ready writer 
to describe my feelings. Where all this affair 
will end God only knows. Tremendous scenes 
may be before me, or it will end in peaceful and 
calm weather." 

The expected conflict never came. Even 
then Louis Philippe had been dethroned 
by the coii'p d^etat, but no royalist party 
arose to claim as its leader the alleged de- 
scendant of the Bourbons, Eleazer Williams. 

After the issue of Rev. Dr. Hanson's 
cleverly-fabricated volume, '' The Lost 



The Lost Dauphin. 2 2g 

Prince," Williams enjoyed for some years 
the notoriety brought him by his claim to 
royalty. In New York, Boston, and Wash- 
ington, he received many flattering at- 
tentions, his polish of manner and agree- 
able conversation giving plausibility to the 
theory of his distinguished antecedents. 
It is said that he carried his assumption to 
the extent of signing his private letters 
with the royal cypher L. C, while notes 
were addressed to him as " Your Royal 
Highness." 

Improbable as now appears his claim 
to greatness, it is yet possible to imagine 
how the story was largely credited among 
an intelligent and cultivated class. In the 
parish register at St. Regis, are recorded 
the names of the children born to Thomas 
Williams and his wife, but Eleazar is not 
among them. Priest Williams possessed 
in a marked degree the facial peculiarities 
of the Bourbons ; he had the scrofulous 
scars said to have marked the young 
Dauphin. He was, according to a con- 
temporary, like the race of Louis Ninth 
through all the centuries, an adept at 
dissimulation and intrigue, and even 
leaving out this last invective, a review of 

16 



2 JO The Lost Dauphin. 

the sad facts in the unfortunate Dauphin's 
history, renders the theory advanced in 
WilHams's case at least plausible. Numer- 
ous affidavits were brought forward to 
substantiate the claim, many of them 
worthy of reliance, and with other proofs 
could bear review far more satisfactorily 
than in many instances of the kind on 
record which have received credit. But 
whether a defrauded prince royal of France, 
or the scion of an ignorant and savage 
race, Eleazer Williams's life was full of 
strange vicissitudes, which were borne with 
a brave stoicism worthy of a truer and 
better man. He died in Hogansburg, 
New York, among the people of his own 
race, whom, in the once high estate of this 
world's favor, he had forsaken, and there 
he " sleeps with the untitled." 



Note. — Authorities for this chapter, unless 
otherwise noted, are Hansen's ''The Lost 
Prince," "Sketch of Eleazer Williams," by 
Mrs. M. L. Martin, Plattsburg Republican, 1882, 
and Wis. Hist. Colls., Vol. VIII., pp. 322-59. 



CHAPTER IX. 

/;/ Later Years, 

There is a legend, that in the early 
years of the century, perhaps 1807, a 
large cross stood on the west side of the 
river, half way between the fort and the 
Des Peres Rapids. Around this holy sym- 
bol the devout among the Green Bay set- 
tlers, then nearly without exception 
Roman Catholic in faith, gathered for the 
ceremonials of their church. Here also a 
confirmation service was held, wdien the 
little Creole children of the village received 
first communion from the hands of a 
Bishop.* If the tradition be true, this 
was the first instance of an ecclesiastical 
visit to the vicinity of the old mission, 
since Father Chardon departed with De 
Lignery, in 1728. 

At Advent season the villagers met 
around from house to house '' to sing 
hymns, and praise the Lord," the first 
reunion of the year being always at the 

* Interview with Mrs. (Angeliqiie Diicharme) 
Martine, of St. Ignace, in fall of 1891. She was 
born about the year 1795. 

231 



2 '^2 In Later Years. 



home of Madame Langevin, a woman 
foremost in all good and Ijenevolent work, 
who, after the religious exercises were 
over, served to her guests a bountiful sup- 
per in the hospitable fashion of those 
early days.* 

The first Protestant sermon ever 
preached in. Wisconsin was delivered by 
Rev. Jedidiah Morse, during his short 
sojourn at the Bay as Indian Commis- 
sioner ; and from time to time in succeed- 
ing years the erratic missionary, Eleazer 
Williams, would hold a service in the 
mess room at Fort Howard. In 1823, 
Father Gabriel Ivichard,t Vicar-General 
for the Northwest, made a visitation to the 
hamlet, probably giving promise of future 
ministrations, for a church was com- 
menced the same year on the De Lang- 
lade property. J Here the venerable Father 
Bad in, making semi-annual visits of two 
weeks' each, was wont to assemble his con- 
gregation and instruct them in the form- 
ulas of their religion. Young and old 

^ Eecollections of Miss Ursula Grignon.— 
French's History of Brown County. 

t Delegate toCongress from Michigan Terri- 
tory in 1823-4. 

X Where now stands the pumping station of 
the Green Bav and Fort Howard Water Works. 



/// Later Years. 2jj 

met together, and, seated on the floor in 
ranks from ten to fifteen deep, would re- 
peat after the good priest, creed, catechism, 
or scripture lesson : he, meanwhile, 
walking up and down between the rows, 
and keeping a sharp lookout for delin- 
quents in respect to attention. This build- 
ing was never completed, but burned to 
the ground some five years later, while 
under the care of a certain Friar Fauvel, 
who, although much beloved by his flock, 
turned out to be something of a renegade. 
As English-speaking Protestants, of 
varying religious tenets, came to the grow- 
ing town, each denomination in its own 
way sought to inaugurate regular serv- 
ices. At one time A. G. Ellis acted as 
lay reader, and taught a Sunday-school 
in Shantytown; and a little later serv- 
ices were conducted in the Fort school- 
house, alternately, by Episcopalians and 
Presbyterians. In 1827 the Rev. Richard 
Cadle was appointed, by the Protes- 
tant Episcopal Missionary Board, super- 
intendent of Green Bay missions. He, 
with his sister, Sarah B. Cadle, as 
assistant, opened a school in the unoccu- 
pied barracks at Camp Smith. A gener- 



2^4 ^^^ Latei' Years. 



ous grant of land, adjoining the military 
reservation on the north, was afterward 
obtained from government through the 
Indian agent. Major Henry B. Brevoort,* 
and two comfortable buildings erected. 
John V. Suydam, who came to Green 
Bay in 1831, was engaged as assistant 
teacher. 

The plan was to establish an industrial 
school similar to those now successfully 
conducted by government for the Western 
reservations, but the Indians were indiffer- 
ent or actively opposed to the scheme, 
having no mind to restrict their children 
to the humdrum monotony of a life 
bounded by routine. Solomon Juneau, 
of Milwavikee, when petitioned to use his 
influence in obtaining scholars, wrote : 
^' As to the little savages whom you ask 
about for Mr. Cadle, I have spoken to 
several, and they tell me with great satis- 
faction that they are much happier in 
their present situation than in learning 
geography." 

The results of the school did not meet 
expectations, and at the expiration of five 
years, health and strength failing, Mr. 

*MS. letter of Rev. R. F. Cadle, Oct., 1829. 




The Whitney Homestead. 

(First House in Navarino ) 



/// Later Years. 2jy 

Cadle asked for a successor. The mission 
was not discontinued, however, until 1839, 
Rev. D. E. Brown succeeding Mr. Cadle 
in charge, assisted by the Misses Crawford. 
In 1830, the Town of Navarino* was laid 
out by Daniel Whitney, whose keen, prac- 
tical mind recognized the suitability of 
this situation for commercial purposes. 
It was at first merely a town on paper, 
a butt for ridicule, owing to its low, 
swampy location ; but Mr. Whitney with 
undiminished confidence built a large 
warehouse and wharf, dwelling-houses for 
his clerks and laborers, and a comfortable 
village tavern, styled the " Washington 
House," t which, in 1834, was placed in 
charge of Thomas Greene, of Plattsburgh, 
N. Y. Gradually the residents of Shanty- 
town looked upon the spot with more 
favor ; several log and frame houses 
were erected, forming a nucleus around 
which the business part of tlie city has 
grown. Mr. Whitney built a school-house 
in 1831, and in the following year Alex- 



*Navarino exteiuled iiortli from tlie center of 
the block between Doty and AValnut StveetB, and 
included the land on the north shore of Devil 
River. — Map of Navarino. 

t Built on present site of Beaumont House. 



2^8 III Later Years. 

ander Grignon announces that if twenty 
scholars are assured to him by sub- 
scription he will " open a school at the 
New School House in Navarino, for the in- 
struction of children in the various 
branches of English studies usually taught 
at Common Schools."* 

From this time forward one or more 
private schools were taught in the growing 
town. The Episcopal mission at Camp 
Smith had declined in prosperity, but at 
the second session of the territorial legisla- 
ture obtained a charter under the name of 
the " Wisconsin University of Green Bay." 
A board of twenty trustees w^as appointed, 
to whom the funds and property of the 
original institution were handed over, to 
be applied for the benefit of the new one, 
^' in such manner as shall most effectually 
promote virtue, piety and learning." f 

About the year 1840 an effort was made 
to establish a district school at Green 
Bay under the revised statutes adopted by 
the third legislature. It met with great 



^Wis. Hist. Colls., Vol. XII., p. 464. 

fColumbian History of Education in Wisconsin. 
The name was afterwards changed to that of 
Hobart University, but the school existed for a 
short time onlv. 



/// Later Years. 



opposition from both Protestants and Ro- 
man Catholics,* which was finally over- 
come, and a school system in time was 
permanently established. 

In 1829 Christ Church Parish (Episco- 
pal) was incorporated by act of the third 
legislative council of Michigan Territory, 
with Daniel Whitney and A. G. Ellis as 
wardens, and eight vestrymen, at that 
time the prescribed number: James D. 
Doty, John Lawe, William Dickenson, A. 
J. Irwin, John P. Arndt, Samuel W. Beall, 
Kobert Irwin, Jr., and H. S. Baird. This 
parish and that of Manitowoc are the only 
church organizations in Wisconsin thus 
incorporated independent of diocesan juris- 
diction.f Rev. Richard F. Cadle was first 
called to the rectorship of the parish in 
1829, with a salary of two hundred and 
fifty dollars per annum, and retained the 
charge, except for an interval of one year, 
until 1837, so endearing himself to his 
parishioners that his name still awakens 
loving memories in the hearts of those who 
recall him. Services were at first held in 



*Kecollections of Dr. David Ward.— French's 
History of Brown County. 

t Christ Church MS. Records. 



240 In Later Years. 

the mission building, but in 1838 the cor- 
ner-stone of Christ Church was laid, Rev. 
D. E. Brown having succeeded Mr. Cadle. 
The structure was completed during the 
following year, and consecrated in 1840 by 
Bishop Kemper. 

The first Methodist service was con- 
ducted at the garrison by Colonel Samuel 
Ryan,* who came with the troops in 1826 as 
a non-commissioned officer. In 1832 the 
New York Conference sent as missionary 
to the district about Green Bay the Rev. J. 
C. Clark, who on his arrival preached at 
the fort to both soldiers and citizens, and 
also formed the first class, consisting of 
Samuel R^^an, class-leader, and three 
other members, one of whom was Mrs. 
George M. Brooks, wife of the command- 
ant In 1834 Rev. George White was ap- 
pointed to the mission, and two years 
later the church membership had so 
increased that a place of worship was be- 

*Col. Kyan, about the year 1830, settled per- 
manently in Green Bay. Others who resigned 
from the army and became resjoected citizens of 
the town, and whose descendants are now resi- 
dent in the state, were Capt. John Cotton and 
Lieut. William Root. Retired officers who, after 
long years of service, spent their last years 
among us, were Col. AVilliam H. Chapman and 
Col. Maurice Maloney. 



/;/ Later Years. 241 

gun, which was completed in the following 
year. This building was ten years later 
purchased by the Roman Catholics of St. 
John's Parish, and was burned in the 
spring of 1872.* 

The Methodists of that day were of the 
true Wesleyan type, to whom the wearing 
of a flounced gown or a gold trinket were 
sins as deadly as any in the decalogue, 
and the story is told that one of their 
most devoted and conscientious members 
was threatened with excommunication by 
her ultra ascetic pastor for appearing at 
meeting in a boimet brought from the 
seat of fashion, Detroit, having its modest 
dove color and white surmounted by a 
huge tulip-shaped rosette. 

The First Presbyterian Church was or- 
ganized in January, 1836, with twelve 
members, prominent among them, Daniel 
Butler, Asahel Hart, E. AV. Follett, and 
William Mitchell. The organization was 
effected on a Saturday evening in a small 
house that still stands on the west side of 
Adams Street, between Dot}^ and Walnut ; 
and the public recognition took place in 



*Bennett's "History of Methodism in Wiscoii" 
sin." 



242 In Later Years. 

the military hospital at Fort Howard on 
the afternoon of the following day. Both 
services were conducted by Rev. Cutting 
Marsh, missionary to the Stockbridge In- 
dians, who continued to preach occasion- 
ally during the summer. Two years sub- 
sequent the church edifice was completed 
and dedicated, Rev. Stephen Peet being 
pastor at the time.* Many interesting 
incidents are connected with this old 
church which burned in the fall of 1880. 
During the pastorate of the Rev. Jeremiah 
Porter, who was installed in 1840 and con- 
tinued in charge for eighteen years, a 
family of fugitive slaves were secreted in 
the belfry for several weeks, until safe 
transportation by sailing vessel could be 
secured for them to Canada. Mr. Porter 
was one of the pioneer clergymen of the 
West, and was greatly beloved by his con- 
gregation at Green Bay. 

In the meanwhile a Roman Catholic 
church and school-house had been built 
in Shantytown on the property of Joseph 
Ducharme, who gave an acre of ground 
for this purpose. The buildings were de- 



*" God'R Providence for Forty Years." — Will- 
iam Crawford, D. D. 



/;/ Later Years. 24 j 

signed by the Dominican, Father Maz- 
zuchelh, and erected during his incum- 
bency. With this cure came two nuns of 
the order of " Poor Claires," who for two 
years superintended a flourishing convent 
school. In the fearful cholera visitation 
of 1832-84 the Lady Superior, Sister Clare, 
with her companion, rendered devoted 
service in nursing the sick, even assisting 
in the burial of the dead. 

Nearly every household was stricken 
and to the terror inspired by the fatal 
scourge was added dread of an Indian 
outbreak, which seemed imminent; for in 
1832 occurred that most tragical episode 
in modern Wisconsin history known as 
the Black Hawk War. Every incoming 
boat was liable to bring contagion. At 
Detroit the epidemic attacked General 
Scott's command on their way to the scene 
of action, depleting the ranks by nearly 
three hundred. Hemmed in by pesti- 
lence on the one hand and rebellious sav- 
ages on the other, our little town felt a 
loneliness and isolation never before 
realized. 

The Fort Howard soldiery, then under 
command of Captain Nathan Clark, were 



244 ^^^ Later Years. 



retained in garrison for protection of the 
townspeople and fugitives from threat- 
ened points. Colonel Boyd, the newly 
appointed Indian agent, who had reached 
his post only a month previous, responded 
promptly to General Atkinson's call for 
Indian allies, and sent runners to the Me- 
nominee camps, urging the warriors to as- 
semhle without delay. Yet, eager though 
they were to revenge the massacre of one 
of their hands by hostile Sacs under Black 
Hawk two years before, the chiefs with 
characteristic deliberation delayed, and at 
the expiration of five days the impatient 
agent could report only forty as encamped 
around the agency house. The number 
was finally augmented to about five 
hundred, who, at their own request, were 
placed under command of Colonel Stam- 
baugh, their former agent.''' 

A limited number of white volunteers, 
recruited by Alexander Irwin, joined the 
expedition. The appearance of the gal- 
lant militiamen on their march is thus 
described : 

"A company of about twenty- five 

horsemen, with banners flying, veils 

*Bovd Paperss— Wis. Hist. Colls., Vol. XII., 
p. 270. ' 



/// Later Years. 24^ 

fluttering from their liats, and arms 
flittering in the sun, rode into our 
midst amid greetings and roars of 
laughter. They were Colonel Stambaugh 
and Alexander Irwin, of Green Bay, with 
a company of young volunteers, and fol- 
lowed by a whooping band of Menominees, 
all bound for the seat of war. We com- 
forted them with the assurance that the 
victories were by this time all won, and 
the scalps taken; but expressing the hope 
that there were yet a few laurels to be 
earned they bade us adieu and rapidly 
pursued their march." ^ The battle of 
Wisconsin Heights had just taken place. 
Stambaugh's volunteers reached the Mis- 
sissippi in time to head off a fugitive 
remnant of Sacs, who had escaped to the 
woods, and these were massacred by the 
Menominee allies.f 

It was during Captain Clark's command 
that the murder of a young officer oc- 
curred at the fort. The perpetrator of the 
<leed, Doyle, a private soldier, had for 
some offense been placed by Lieutenant 
Foster's order in confinement. Doyle per- 

* Waubun. — Mrn. John H. Kinzie. 
fThwaitcB's Storv of tlie Black Hawk War. 



17 



246 III Later Years. 

suaded the sergeant of the guard to allow 
him an interview with the lieutenant, and 
when brought into his presence wrenched 
tlie gun from the sergeant's hand and sent 
a bullet through the heart of the officer, 
who gave one sigh and fell dead. Doyle 
was hung outside the stockaded wall of 
of the fort. 

Disagreements had arisen among the 
various Indian tribes settled along Fox 
River as to the alleged purchase and sale 
of lands in the years 1821-22 : the New 
York Indians maintaining that the treaty 
made at that time was for bona fide pur- 
chase, while the Menominees and Winne- 
bagoes declared it to be merely a permit 
granted their brothers from New York ''to 
sit down among them." President Jack- 
son, in the summer of 1830, appointed 
General Erastus Root and James McCall^ 
of New York, and John T. Mason, of Ken- 
tucky, to meet the Indians in council, at- 
tempt an adjustment of these difficulties, 
and define the limits of the reservation 
ceded to the New York tribes. 

McCall's private journal, in which he 
kept a daily minute record of events, is a 
marvel of defective spelling and misplaced 



Ill Later Years. 24] 



capitals, yet describes in spicy maimer a 
typical Indian council. A building for 
temporary use as a council-room was 
erected adjoining Judge Arndt's residence, 
and here " public table" was kept for the 
chiefs and principal men of the tribes, 
while daily rations were issued to the rabble 
encamped outside. The river was alive 
with canoes crowded full of savages ; at 
one time a fleet of sixty swept up to the 
landing-place. That night high revel was 
held ; ''all drunk, boath male and female — 
quarrilling among themselves," writes 
McCall ; yet the next day he speaks with 
admiration of Hoot Schoop, or Four Legs, 
head chief of the Winnebagoes, whom he 
entertained at dinner. " A most inter- 
esting man in appearance and deport- 
ment, speaks his own toung fluently and 
forcible." Eleazer Williams appeared for 
the St. Regis Indians, and the western 
tribes demanded that they also should have 
representatives from among the white men, 
which the commissioners acceding to, the 
Menominees chose " one who lived in a 
brick house and was judge of the high 
court" (Judge Doty), while the Winne- 
bagoes "took hold of and introduced a 



24^ In Later Years. 



young lawyer by the name of Henry S. 
Baird as their council." 

The war dances waxed more fierce and 
frequent as time went by, and the delib- 
erations seemed interminable. McCall 
wearied of the whole affair, longing to be 
"again in a Christian country," and not 
alone from the savages does he complain 
of annoyance. At one of the dinings to 
which were invited "Officers from the fort, 
some private gentlemen and about four- 
teen chiefs," an altercation arose between 
his two fellow commissioners in relation to 
the invitations issued, which quite de- 
stroyed the geniality of the occasion ; 
"some of the company already present re- 
fused to sit at the Table and some very 
hard words passed, To the mortifica- 
tion or dissatisfaction of all present, and 
the whole was confusion." After this 
unpleasantness the custom of setting a 
public dinner was discontinued. 

Little was accomplish ad at this great 
council. A. G. Ellis was instructed to 
make a survey by which the boundary 
lines of the reservations in dispute were 
defined, and these were confirmed the fol- 
lowing winter, when a deputation of In- 



/;/ Later Years. 24^ 

clians in charge of Agent Stambaugli went 
on to Washington, and conckided what 
has become know^n as the ''Stambaugh 
Treaty." * 

The final removal of the New York 
Indians to their Western home, in 1832, 
added much to the importance of the 
agency at Green Bay. In June of that 
year, John Quincy Adams appointed to 
the position George Boyd, a Maryland gen- 
tleman of good colonial family, whose wife 
w^as a sister of Mrs. Adams. Colonel Boyd 
was a courtly and accomplished South- 
erner, fond of wine, good dinners, and the 
expensive luxuries of life. Household 
goods used in his Mackinacf establishment, 
the tall, silver candle sticks, oval mirrors in 
gilded frames, and handsome brasses, are 
a matter of wonder when one considers the 
wilderness through which they w^ere trans- 
ported and the rude, primitive dwelling 
they were destined to adorn. At Colonel 
Boyd's bountiful board, men of diverse call- 
ings were entertained : Rt. Rev. Bishop 
Kemper, on a visitation to the newly 



^Wis. Hist. Colls., Vols. II., pp. 482 e< 8^(/., 
and XII., pp. 170-209. 

t Where he was formerly agent. 



2^o In Later Years. 



organized church at Navarino; the agent 
of American Fur Company, who brought 
the latest Eastern news ; officers from the 
garrison, with distinguished guests, who 
were here on a visit of inspection or pleas- 
ure, were all made welcome. 

A most important work, commenced 
about this time (1832), in which soldiers 
from Fort Howard were employed, was 
the opening of two highways, known for 
many years as the militar}^ roads: one 
following Fox River to Fond du Lac and 
striking across country to the Fox- Wiscon- 
sin Portage ; the other running southeast to 
Manitowoc, and from thence along the lake 
shore to Chicago. * The latter route closely 
followed the old Indian trail, the same that 
Alexis Clermont took (1833-36) when 
making regular trips with the United 
States mail bags strapped on his back. 
Moses Hardwick was also employed dur- 
ing the thirties as mail carrier to Milwau- 
kee, where Solomon Juneau was at that 
time postmaster. The small newspaper 
published semi-monthly at Green Bay, m 



* Maj) of Wiskoiisin Territory compiled from 
the public surveys, 1st session, 3X)d Congress. 



/;/ Later Years. 2^1 



1834, has this refrain at the head of its 
columns : 

Three times a week without any fail, 

At four o'clock we look for the mail, • 

Brought with dispatch on an Indian trail. 

Often, however, the villagers must have 
looked in vain for a sight, at the forest's 
<3dge, of the queer, brown figure, with its 
burden of wished-for letters. Trusty car- 
riers were hard to find, although the pay 
was ample according to the scale of wages 
in those days, — $45 to Milwaukee, and 
from $60 to $65 to Chicago and return, 
— and communication must have been 
very irregular, to judge from letters that 
passed between Bernard Grignon, who had 
the contract for transporting the mail, and 
the Milwaukee postmaster. 

Following Captain Clark as command- 
ant at the fort was Major A. C. W. Fan- 
ning, w^ho was relieved in 1833 by Gen- 
eral George M. Brooks. The officers of the 
5th Infantry who came with Brooks, or 
were stationed here up to 1838, were Moses 
E. Merrill, Martin Scott, Kirby Smith, 
Caleb Sibley, W. B. Rosselle, William H. 
Chapman, Randolph Marcy,* John C- 

* Lieutenant Marcy afterward rose to the rank 
of Inspector General of the IT. S. Army. His 



2^2 In Late7- Years. 

Robinson — gallant officers, whose names 
are all familiar to old Green Bay residents. 
Captain Martin Scott, whose eccentrici- 
ties were well known not only in army 
circles, but in civil life also, was famous in 
his youth among the sharp-shooters of 
the Green Mountains. His wonderful 
success in the use of a gun gave rise to his 
boast that no bullet ever moulded could 
strike Martin Scott, a prediction sadly un- 
fulfilled in the end. Many anecdotes are 
told concerning the misanthropic officer,, 
who loved his dogs better than mankind^ 
but the memorials left by him of these 
favorites have been ignored by his biog- 
raphers. The captain's devotion to the 
chase necessitated a variety of canine 
breeds, and for their comfort he built a 
liliputian city, each kennel in pagoda 
shape, with florid ornamentation, conspicu- 
ous even from a distance on entering the 
harbor, and dubbed by villagers and sold- 



daughter, Ellen, who became the wife of Major 
General George B. McClellan, was born at Fort 
Howard, and her babyhood's nurse, Aunt Polly 
Doxtater, who died at Green Bay, December, 1882, 
at the age of 97 years, was an Oneida woman of 
considerable intelligence and some education — a 
most interesting character to her life's end, able 
to recall entertaining memories of people and 
events long passed away. 



/;/ Later Years. 25 j 

iers,* 'Scott's four-legged brigade quarters." 
While Captain Scott remained at the 
fort, the care given to the appointments of 
this miniature village might have done 
credit to Gulliver's palace of the pigmies, 
but when marching orders came, the dogs 
were given to friends and scattered abroad, 
and the buildings, erected with so critical 
an eye to architectural detail, and such 
consideration for the comfort of the ani- 
mals, fell into disuse and decay. The 
dilapidated skeletons remained for a few 
years, however, as broken records of the 
faithful friend and brave soldier who 
marched so unfalteringly to carnage and 
death. 

By 1835, many of the old colonial customs 
had passed away ; the village had lost 
something of its primitive social character, 
but the people were still given to lavish 
entertainment and merry-making to an 
unusual degree. The French habitants, 
never aggressive, retired more and more 
within their own circle and nationality, 
while a more prim and sober class of 
Americans were filling the vacant places, 
and stamping their influence on the 



2^4 ^^^ Later Years. 



manners and customs of the settlement.* 
Among the officers stationed at the fort 
then and for a decade following, the greater 
part were gay young graduates of West 
Point, full of vitality and ready for any 
fun, while their wives, ladies of culture 
and refinement from high social circles in 
Eastern cities, were nearly all strict re- 
ligionists, disapproving to a great extent 
of worldly amusements. This threw the 
officers much into comradeship with the 
civilians across the river. The " Wash- 
ington" was a favorite place of rendezvous^ 
and to many a jovial scene between 
soldier and citizen were the old walls 
witness. Cards were in free use, yet 
stakes were never of large amount, nor 
was payment of so-called debts of honor 
imperatively demanded. There were no 
ill-mannered revels, boisterous and coarse — 
simply a bevy of young spirits, pining for 
excitement and action, working off surplus 
energy. 

The old Fifth, so long identified with 
Green Bay garrison life, was ordered to 
Florida in 1841, the last of its officers to 
leave Fort Howard being Captain M. E. 

* MS. letter of Col. William H. Chapman, 1835. 



/// Later Years. -^55 

Merrill — commandant since 1837 — First 
Lieutenant William Root, Second Lieu- 
tenant John C. Robinson, of Company 
K. When war was declared with Mexico 
the regiment concentrated in Texas, join- 
ing the army of occupation under Gen- 
eral Zachary Taylor, and participated 
in all the engagements of the war, ex- 
cepting that of Buena Vista. It formed 
the rear guard of the army in the 
march from the City of Mexico when 
peace was declared ; the last company to 
evacuate the city, being commanded by 
Lieutenant Robinson. In the first mur- 
derous charge at the battle of Molino del 
Rey, when through false intelligence of 
the enemy's position General Scott ordered 
a precipitate advance, and a detachment 
of the Fifth rushed into the jaws of death 
with full consciousness that the order had 
been a fatal mistake. Chapman was 
wounded, and Merrill, Scott and Kirby 
Smith w^ere killed.* 

During the Mexican war Fort Howard 
was not garrisoned, and in the years fol- 
lowing was left in a state of semi- 



* MS. letter of Major-General John C. Robin- 
son, 1898. 



2§6 In Later Yeai's. 



defense only ; although small commands 
were quartered there, at one time under 
Colonel Francis Lee, and later under 
Colonel Bonneville, its days as a protect- 
ive fortress were over. These last were 
placid years in the fort's history ; the ne- 
cessity which called it into existence had 
passed away ; peace and prosperity smiled 
upon the region roundabout under civil 
government, and, like a warrior full of 
years and honor, the old cantonment calmly 
awaited dissolution. Nothing is now left 
to mark the spot where stood one of the 
oldest and most prominent military posts 
in our country, save a large elm tree which 
once cast its shade over the commanding 
officer's quarters and now remains a lonely 
reminder of the military period in Green 
Bay's history.* 



*In 1852, Major E^^hraim Shaylor, a veteran of 
1812, was in charge of the military reservation^ 
with a sergeant and orderly under him ; other- 
wise the fort remained ungarrisoned. During 
the War of the Rebellion, when it was consid- 
ered prudent to protect the Canadian frontier, 
Captain Curtis R. Merrill, with a volunteer corps,, 
was stationed here by order of government. A 
few years later the site of the fort passed into 
possession of the Chicago & North -Western 
Railway Company and the works were demol- 
ished. 



CHAPTER X. 

Growth Under Territorial Government. 

A new era in Western progress was in- 
augurated in the year 1834, for at that time 
government concluded by treaty the pur- 
chaseof extensive territory hitherto held by 
the Indians, which during that 3^ear and the 
next was surveyed and opened up for settle- 
ment. These lands embraced the southern 
portion of the present State of Wisconsin, 
and were partitioned into two districts, that 
to the westward being designated as the Wis- 
consin District, with land office at Mineral 
Point, while the eastern half, bordering on 
Lake Michigan, and including the now 
most populous counties of the state, was 
called the Green Bay District, for which a 
land office was opened at Navarino,* with 
Samuel W. Beall, as receiver, and William 
B. Slaughter, register. Here were to be 
found on paper the newly-platted villages 
of Milwaukee and Navarino, and the latter 
place, being considered by far the most 

^Strong's History of Wisconsin Territory, p. 

257 



2^8 Tert'itorial Government. 

desirable at which to locate, town lots rap- 
idly rose in value from fifty to twelve 
hundred dollars each. During the sum- 
mers of 1835-36, excitement rose to fever 
heat, every steamer and schooner bringing 
settlers; speculators also crowded in, who 
purchased land at government prices, 
which they sold to later comers for treble 
the amount. Moneyed men from Detroit 
and other cities invested heavily, the sales 
in four days alone reaching the sum of 
seventy-five thousand dollars. With all 
the wild buying and selling of this busy 
crowd the utmost harmony and good feel- 
ing prevailed, and a vote of thanks was 
afterward drawn up by leading men of 
Milwaukee, expressing appreciation of the 
perfectly fair treatment that their claims 
had received from the citizens of Green 
Bay. 

It was during the progress of this land 
sale that the first church fair was held in 
Green Bay, under the auspices of Christ 
Church Parish. All the ladies of the vil- 
lage, irrespective of denominational pref- 
erence, united in the work, and a 
great variety of articles was collected ; 
among other Indian curiosities, a minia- 



Territorial Govern?nent. 2^g 

ture wigwam of tiny puckaway mats, 
which readily sold for forty dollars. A 
bountiful supper was provided and in ad- 
dition the ladies sold for a large price sau- 
cers of " floating island, " which they des- 
ignated as " floats," a term much in use 
during the land sale. The evening was 
also enlivened by an auction — William B. 
Ogden, who, with many other capitalists, 
had been brought to the town by the specu- 
lative fever, acting as auctioneer. In the 
words of Mrs. Baird, who, in her " Contes 
du Temps Passe,^^ gives a charming account 
of this fair, Mr. Ogden " was brilliant, 
witty, perfectly superb, — no professonial 
auctioneer could have thought of com- 
peting with him." 

The impetus given to the settlement 
of the incipient commonwealth by these 
sales was enormous, but the land craze 
did not eventually benefit Green Bay 
as it did other localities, a large area of the 
most desirable property within the town- 
ship being owned by magnates of the 
American Fur Company, who held it 
at exorbitant figures. In 1835 the town 
of Astor was platted, the proprietors being 
John Jacob Astor, Ramsay Crooks and 



26o Tcn'itorial Govenunent . 

Robert Stuart. A fine hotel, the Astor 
House, was built by John Jacob Astor, on 
the corner of Adams and Mason Streets, 
and also a rambling structure, known in 
later years as "the bank building," where 
the first regularly incorporated financial 
institution west of Detroit, the Bank of 
Wisconsin, opened its doors in 1835. The 
old stone vault is still standing on the 
corner of Adams and Milwaukee Streets. 
A fierce jealousy existed between the new 
village and Navarino until January 11th, 
1838, when they w^ere united under the 
name of the Borough of Green Bay, Mor- 
gan L. Martin being elected president of 
the borough.* 

Meanwhile public interest was not con- 
fined to the evolution of the municipal- 
ity, for leading men of Green Bay were 
active in the furtherance of measures for 
setting off a new territory. Conspicuous 
in this project and later, influential agents 
in the formation of territorial laws and 
constitution were James D. Doty, Henry 8. 
Baird, and Morgan L. Martin energetic 
spirits, strongly imbued with an enthusi- 
astic faith in the resources and important 

* Chapter 66, Laws of Wisconsin, 1838. 



Territorial Govenunetit. 261 

future of the undeveloped commonwealth. 
Others who took part in early legisla- 
tive councils, were John P. Arndt, A. G. 
Ellis, Robert and Alexander J. Irwin, 
EbenezerChilds, and Joseph Dickinson. 

The admission of Michigan as a state, 
with boundaries that did not include the 
region west of Lake Michigan, was pend- 
ing in congress, and, while the matter 
was still in abeyance, a state government 
was organized at Detroit. This left in 
the cold the six counties, having a popula- 
tion of perhaps 15,000, which afterward 
formed the State of Wisconsin, but at the 
last regular session of the Territorial legis- 
lature of Michigan, held in 1835, Acting 
Governor Mason had provided for this con- 
tingency by appointing the first day of 
January, 1836, for the assembling at Green 
Bay of a legislative council to enact laws 
for the independent government of that 
section : members from the various 
counties to be chosen by popular vote, 
which should also elect a delegate to con- 
gress. Mason had been appointed gover- 
nor of the new State of Michigan, and 
John W. Horner, of Virginia, filled his 
place as acting governor and secretary 

18 



262 Territorial Government. 

of the embryo Territory, still a part of 
Michigan. 

Thirteen members were elected to the 
legislative council, several of them from 
the extreme western border, and through 
wintry woods wended their way over a 
country where settlers were so few that 
camping out along the route was a fre- 
quent necessity. A quorum met at the 
appointed time and place.* Governor 
Horner, however, did not appear, nor did 
he send any official explanation of his 
non-attendance, although through the col- 
umns of the Wisconsin Democrat he stated 
as a reason, that his presence in Detroit 
was essential in order to look after the 
interests of the newly-elected Wisconsin 
congressman, George W. Jones, whose seat 
was contested by his opponent from Upper 
Michigan. A president (Josiah B. Teas) 
secretary (A. G. Ellis), and fiscal agent (J. 
D. Doty) were elected ; but owing to the 
absence of the executive no legislative 
business could be transacted other than 
the adoption of resolutions and memori- 

■* This session of legislature was held in a build- 
ing, erected by W. H. Bruce, which was near 
where the Beaumont House now stands. — 
French's History of Brown Countv. 



Territorial Govenunent. 26 j 

ills. Governor Horner was at the outset 
severely censured for failure to be present. 

A committee appointed for the purpose 
prepared a memorial praying congress to 
establish an independent government in 
the country west of Lake Michigan, "com- 
monly called Wisconsin Territory," where- 
upon a long debate ensued over the loca- 
tion of a seat of government, no decision, 
however, being arrived at. The session 
lasted two weeks, the attendant expense 
being something over twenty-three hun- 
dred dollars, a sum which, oddly enough, 
it was supposed by several of the mem- 
bers that the fiscal agent was to defray. 
After much wrangling, however, the mat- 
ter was amicably adjusted, and an appro- 
priation by congress for payment of con- 
tingent expenses in the legislature of 1836 
was used to liquidate the indebtedness. 
Thus ended the first session of a legisla- 
tive body in Wisconsin.* 

On the 4th of July, 1836, a bill took 
effect creating the Territory of Wisconsin, 
the name having been suggested by 
James Duane Doty in recognition of its 



* Strong's History of Wisconsin Territory, p. 
194. 



264 Territorial Governmenf. 

principal river, Ouiskouche,* or Ouiscon- 
sin, as it was variously written in old 
French days — a name of Indian origin. 
The first legislative assembly of the terri- 
tory convened at Belmont,t on the 25th of 
October, when Henry S. Baird was elected 
president of the council, and later was ap- 
pointed by Gov. Dodge first Attorney-Gen- 
eral of Wisconsin Territory. At this session 
an act was passed dividing the territory 
into three judicial districts, Brown and 
Milwaukee Counties constituting the third, 
to which w^as assigned Judge William 
C. Frazer, a man who added little to 
the reputation of the bench in his district. 
Depere was chosen as the county seat, and 
although three years later the legislature 
was petitioned to allow the courts to convene 
at Green Bay, and a bill to that effect was 
passed, this was subsequently repealed. 
There was much grumbling among 
residents of the older borough, but not 
until the city was incorporated in 1854, 
was the county seat again restored to Green 

* Taliban's Perrot. 

t In November, 1836, Judge Doty and Jobn V. 
Suvdam started on borseback from Green Bay, 
and going by way of the Wisconsin River and 
''Four Lakes" surveyed and laid out several 
towns, among them the future capital of the state. 



Ten'itorial Governmeiit. 26 j 

Bay, the first court house being the old 
Holland Church on Adams Street. 

Several ineffectual attempts had been 
made at different times to start a news- 
paper, and on December 11, 1833, the 
pioneer journal of Wisconsin appeared 
under the name of the Green Bay Intelli- 
gencer, edited by John V. Suydam. It was 
printed in Navarino, was a sixteen- 
column folio sheet, 16x22, and, owing to 
the limited patronage receive!, was issued 
semi-monthly. Subsequently A. G. Ellis 
became connected with the office, and 
later sole proprietor. In 1835, Charles P. 
Arndt purchased a part interest, the paper 
changed its name to the Green Bay Intelli- 
gencer and Wisconsin Democrat, and in the 
initial number an endeavor was made 
toward the organization of a Democratic 
part3^ The same year a rival sheet ap- 
peared, "jf7ie Wisconsin Free Press,'^ Will- 
iam Stephenson, editor. For a short time 
the village supported two papers, but they 
were soon consolidated under the title of 
Wisconsi7i Democrat, Charles C. Sholes 
becoming owner and publisher. The 
Democrat was continued until the office 
was burned, in 1840, when it was removed 



266 Tei'i'itorial Government . 

to Kenosha, and Brown County was left 
without a local journal.* 

These publications could not be called 
newspapers as the term is understood to- 
day, yet the sheets w^ere of a pure tone, 
the contents in many instances of high in- 
tellectual merit. Coming into the homes 
of a people cut off from outside communi- 
cation for a large part of the year, they 
exerted an influence, the tendency of 
which was toward mental and moral im- 
provement. In the leading column of the 
first page were the poems, sometimes con- 
tributed, but more frequently copied from 
w^ell-known authors, followed by short 
stories or essays on "Domestic Happiness,'' 
''Eternity," "The Sabbath," or other topics 
of a similar character. On the second 
page, in place of editorials on tariff reform 
or our relations with foreign countries, 
were selections on such subjects as "Sacred 



* Early in 1840, the Ryaii brothers, James and 
Samuel, issued a paper called the RejnibUcan; 
and in 1846 the Green Bay Advocate, a Demo- 
cratic journal, was established by Charles D. and 
Albert Robinson. In 1866, Colonel George C 
Ginty and Dwightl. Follett began to publish the 
Gree^n Bay Gazette (Republic^an) and in 1871 Green 
Bay's first daily was started by George Iloskinson 
ancl D. I. Follett, Colonel Ginty having with- 
drawn from the firm. 



Territorial Govei'ument. 26y 

Music/' "The Bobolink," "Death," or "My 
Motlier." There was a noticeable lack of 
local or personal items, and important 
news from the outside world was stated 
with the preface, "By a gentleman lately 
arrived we learn," or "A gentleman from 
Washington tells us." Points which were 
made by the editor and Avhich he feared 
might escape his readers' attention, were 
italicized by a clenched hand with out- 
stretched forefinger at beginning and end 
of sentences in the midst of a paragraph, 
giving an odd appearance to the page. 
The advertising column brings before us 
the girl of the period, in her sarcenet or 
levantine gown, with tambour'd Swiss 
muslin handkerchief, short-wristed mitts 
and large leghorn hat, adorned with float- 
ing ostrich plumes. 

During the next decade, as facilities for 
communication with the seaboard in- 
creased, there was a marked change in the 
character of these village journals : yet 
the tiny Intelligencer, the first newspaper 
published between Lake Michigan and the 
Pacific Ocean, heralded the many-col- 
umned sheets of the present day. 



268 Territorial Government. 

At the mission school-house, the Green 
Bay Lyceum, one of the then popular so- 
cieties for stimulating thought, met on 
winter evenings and gravely discussed 
such questions as the following : " Is the 
Colonization Society established for the 
benefit of the Blacks, more beneficial to the 
public than the influence exerted by Tem- 
perance Societies throughout the Union ?'^ 

The history of the fur trade during 
these later years is interesting only as 
showing in statistics the large dealings of 
the Astor corporation and the immense 
profits accruing therefrom despite the 
hard times constantly deplored. Green 
Bay was the centre of a lucrative trade 
extending up the Menominee and Wiscon- 
sin Rivers, where each winter "jack-knife" 
posts were established — Lawe, Porlier, the 
Grignons, and a number of American trad- 
ers having their regular wintering grounds. 
Whisky was distributed in immense 
quantities, the fur company sending, in 
1830, sixty barrels, and another year fifty- 
six barrels of the fiery liquid to one Green 
Bay trader alone, "enough to half drown all 
the Indians you deal with," writes one of 
the principals from Mackinac. A thorn in 



Territorial Govenimoit . 26^ 

the flesh of Stuart and Crooks was that irre- 
sponsible braggart, the Canadian engage, ^o 
necessary an assistant in the rough life of 
the wilderness. Deserters and delinquents 
they were called, and in 1832 Robert Stuart 
endeavored to have the Michigan legisla- 
ture re-enact the old whipping-post statute, 
as it was impossible to hold refractory ser- 
vants to their duty by prosecution for dam- 
ages, which they never had money to pay. 
In 1834 Astor retired from the American 
Fur Company, disposing of his interest to 
Ramsay Crooks. 

For many years later the corporation 
continued to have dealings with Green 
Bay, but the palmy days of the fur trade 
were at an end, and with it passed away 
much that made the town interesting and 
picturesque : the large l^ands of motley- 
clothed savages, that yearly encamped 
on the river plateau, and remained for 
weeks at a time to barter and beg at the 
settlement ; the loading and unloading 
of barges at the broad, low warehouses along 
the shore ; the autumnal influx of traders ; 
and, above all, the blithe, merry-hearted 
voyageur, whose songs yet haunt these 
river valleys, where his presence is seen no 



2^0 Territorial Government . 

more. Still, when the season comes for the 
return of these gay vagabonds, when the 
chill mornings dawn, and mist hangs heavy 
over marsh and river, followed by the 
warm, lingering sunshine of afternoon, 
when the woods are a hazy green, with 
here and there a scarlet dash of sumach, 
and an occasional shot rings out, for the 
ducks are flying southward, one can al- 
most hear the far-off chorus to which the 
paddles keep steady time, striking the 
water in sharp precision as with a single 
blow. Above the quiet lapping of the river 
rises the song : 

Reveille, reveille, reveille — 
Dans mon chemin j'ai rencontre 
Trois cavalieres, bien montes ; 
Trois cavalieres, bien niontee, 
L 'una cheval, et I'autre ^ pied ; 
L'on Ion, laridon daine 
Lon, ton laridon dai."* 

To those familiar with this old town 
and its history, the shores of Fox River 
are peopled as by enchantment with the 
actors in scenes of long ago. The 
haughty commandant, De Villiers, comes 

*The air to which these words were snng so 
charmed the poet Moore as his voyageur crew 
on the St. Lawrence trolled it over and over 
again, that he set to it the words of his " Cana- 
dian Boat Song" — 

" Row, brothers, row, the stream runs fast, 
The rapids are near and the daylight is past." 



o 

K 

r 

tr 

X 
o 



H 

o 

r 

o 

3 

H 
o 




Territorial Government. 2y j 

forth again from the walls of old Fort St. 
Francis to wreak his vengeance on the 
rebel Sacs in their village across the 
river; Pere Marquette's black-robed form 
and pale, intellectual face ; curious travel- 
ers bent on exploration of the unknown 
wilderness ; soldier of fortune and blank- 
eted savage, and the light-hearted, incon- 
sequent conrenr de hois, all " march in 
gay mixture " along the broad water high- 
way. Once more the little log cabins 
spring up on the shore, and the witching- 
notes of a violin tremble upon the air. If 
it is Easter-tide a greater part of the com- 
munity are away at that most alluring of 
sylvan gathering places, the sugar camp. 
Preparations for the sugar season Avere 
commenced by the middle of February, 
and Avhen the warm, sunny days and 
slightly frosty nights of early spring-time 
induced the upward run of sap, life grew 
busy in these wildwoods. •'Men, women, 
and even the children, were all kept em- 
ployed supplying wood for the fire, setting 
birch bark casseausto catch the sap, which 
was carried to camp in buckets of bass- 
wood bark. Constant care became neces- 
sary as soon as the boiling process began. 



2y 4 Tt^-ritorial Govcnnnoit. 

This was carefully watched day and night 
by the women in charge, who relieved each 
other in the tedious work of standing 
over the great, shining, brass kettles, a 
branch of hemlock in hand to cool the too 
rapid thickening of the foamy syrup. 
During the Lenten fast this pleasure-lov- 
ing people relinquished their merry-mak- 
ings, ready, however, to usher in the Easter 
Festival, that most joyous holy day of the 
year, with glad thanksgiving and renewed 
social delight. Then parties from the fort 
were invited to visit the camps, and either 
in French train, or on horse-back, if the 
snow was gone, the gay company took its 
way through silent, leafless woods, filled 
with the subtle fascination of awakening 
spring, when Nature, faintly stirred from 
its long winter's sleep, lies drowsing, wait- 
ing for a breath of summer to rouse it 
into life. Arriving at the camp the party 
was welcomed with such good cheer as 
could be prepared under the primitive 
conditions, supplemented perhaps, in picnic 
style, l^y the guests themselves, and sea- 
soned with lively talk and jest. When 
dusk fell came the inevitable fiddle, bowed 
then as now by the nimble fingers of a 



Territorial Govcriiinent. 2yj 

Ducharme, which set gay feet in motion, — 
and so day glided into night, and at last 
the party rode home under the shining 
stars. 

As one looks back to that primitive era 
in the history of Green Bay, it seems 
pervaded by a sunny cheeriness which 
neither stern deprivation nor grim toil had 
power to shadow or depress. These bright 
tableaux, already removed far in per- 
spective, under the transforming touch of 
innovation and change, are fast fading in 
form and color. Yet each year that slips 
away, while taking with it some old land- 
mark or association, brings to the town a 
substantial prosperity, a broader culture, 
and a steady trend toward the progress of 
the outside world. 



IN DEX. 

[By Reuben Gold Thwaites.] 



ABA 

ABANEL, Jesuit missionary, 
67. 

Advocate, early newspaper, 266. 

Algonkin Indians, 5; early 
trade with French, 4 ; Nico- 
let with, 6-14 ; war with Iio- 
qnois, 19. 

Allen, early steamboat cap- 
tain, 175. 

Allouez, Claude, at La Pointe, 
27, 28 ; at Green Bay, 28, 32- 
42, 44, 45, 50-56; with St. 
Lusson, 59 ; in Illinois, 66. 

Allouez (town), established, 
162. 

American Fur Company, 149, 
151, 157, 189-192, 250, 259, 260, 
268-275. 

American State Papers, 81, 150, 
154, 157, 158, 169, 173. 

Andre, Louis, with St. Lusson, 
59; at Green Bav, 50-56, 66, 
67. 

Arndt, Charles C. P., register 
of i)robate, 189. 

Arndt, John P., establishes 
ferry, 197, 198; probate judge, 
199; innkeeper, 199; judge, 
247; vestr\man, 239; coun- 
cillor, 261*. 

Ashwaubenon Creek, legend 
of, 174. 

Astor, John Jacob, establishes 
American Fur Co., 149; in- 
terests at Green Bay, 138, 
259, 260, 269. 

Astor (town), 221. 

"DADIN, early Catholic priest, 

-^ 232, 233. 

Baird, Henry S., first lawyer, 
184, 248; 'yestrymau, 239; 
councillor, 260, 264; cited, 
182. 

Baird, Mrs. Henry S., cited, 
190, 259. 

Balfour, Capt., English com- 
mandant. 109-111. 

Bancroft, George, Ilisiory of 
United States, 69. 



BRO 

Bank of Wisconsin, opened, 
260. 

Bass Channels, Nicoletat, 11. 

Bay de Noquet, Nicolet at, 9. 

Bayfield, Lieut., at Green Bay, 
175. 

Beall, Samuel W., yestrymau, 
239 ; receiver of land oflTice, 
257. 

Bennett, P. S., History of Metho- 
dism in Wisconsin, 241. 

Beaujeu, with Langlade at 
Braddock's defeat, 100. 

Beaupre, land claimant, 174. 

Biddle, John, Indian Agent, 
150. 

Black Hawk, Sac chief, in war 
of 1812-15, 139. 

Black Hawk War, Green Bay's 
part in, 243-245. 

Bowyer, John, Indian agent, 
149, 150, 160, 180. 

Bonneyille, American com- 
mandant, 256. 

Bourassa, Charlotte, wife of 
Charles de Langlade, 114, 
115, 122. 

Boyd, George, Indian agent, 
244, 249, 250. 

Brady, Hiigh, American com- 
mandant, 196, 197. 

Braddock's defeat, Langlade 
at, 100, 101. 

Brebeuf, Father, ascends the 
Ottawa, 8. 

Breyoort, Henry B., territorial 
judge, 183, 186 ; Indian 
agent, 206, 207, 234. 

Breyoort, Marie, on early gar- 
rison days, 206-209. 

Brooks, George M., American 
commandant, 25L 

Brooks, Mrs. George M., early 
Methodist, 240. 

Brothertown Indians, re- 
moved to Wisconsin, 218. 

Brown County, how named, 
180 ; organized, 179, 180 ; 
first courts, 180-189, 264. 



277 



278 



Index. 



BRO 

Brown, D. E., Protestant mis- 
sionary, 237, 240. 

Bruce, W. H., 262. 

Brunette. Baptiste, Green Bay 
pioneer, 116, 117, 131. 

Brunette, Dominick, early 
settler, 142. 

Bulger, A., commandant at 
Praire du Chien, 145. 

Butler, Daniel, early Presby- 
terian, 241. 

Butte des Morts (Grand), In- 
dian council at, 203. 

Buttes des Morts (Petite), ori- 
gin of name, 90. 

pADLE, Richard F., Indian 

^ mission of, 233-237, 239, 
240. 

Cadle, Sarah B., early teacher, 
238. 

Camp Smith, 166, 193, 233, 238. 

Carron, orator of Menomonees, 
116, 152. 

Carron, M., early teacher, 159. 

Carron, Mme., early teacher, 
159. 

Cass, Lewis, western Indian 
superintendent, 150, 176, 177, 
180, 181. 

Chakauchokama (Old King), 
chief of Menomonees, 116, 
152, 153. 

Chambers, American officer, 
151, 153. 155. 

Chambers Island, origin of 
name, 151. 

Champlain, Samuel de, colon- 
izes Quebec, 3 ; interest in 
the Northwest, 4-7 ; attacks 
Iroquois, 19; death, 14. 

Chapman, William H., Ameri- 
can officer, 240, 251, 254. 

Chardon, .Jesuit missionary, 
67, 81, S3, 86, 87, 231. 

Charlevoix, P. F. X., History 
of New France, 57, 58, 69, 79, 
82 ; at Green Bay, 81-83. 

Chequamegon Bay , Jesuit mis- 
sion on, 27. 

Chevaliier family, pioneers, 
131. 

Chevaliier, Louise, married, 
135. 

Childs, Ebenezer, earlv settler, 
161, 203. 

Chippewa Indians, visited by 
Allouez, 27; with Langlade, 
99, 100, 119 ; in Pontiac war, 
112,114,125; relations with 
Americans, 170. 



DeL 

Christ Church, 239, 240. 

Clark, George Rogers, feared 
at Green Bay, 120. 

Clark, J. C, Methodist mis- 
sionary, 240. 

Clark, Nathan, American com- 
mandant, 243, 245, 251. 

Clermont, Alexis, early mail 
carrier, 250. 

Chigancourt, French commis- 
sioner, 86. 

Colden, Cadwallader, History 
of Five Nations, 11. 

Collins, midshipman, 175. 

"Columbia," early steamer, 
223, 224. 

Cotton, John, American of- 
ficer, 240. 

Courcelles. governor of New 
France, 60. 

Coureiirs de bois, in Wisconsin, 
39-46, 67-78. See Du Lhut, 
and Perrot. 

Courts, first established, 180- 
189, 264. 

Coutume de Paris, 134, 181. 

Crane. Mrs. H. O., 95. 

Crawford County, established, 
188. 

Crawford, Misses, early teach- 
ers, 237. 

Crawford, William, God's Pro- 
vidence for Forty Years, 242. 

Crespej, Emanuel, cited, 86. 

Crime, early, 169-171, 192, 198. 

Crooks, Ramsey, en route to 
Pacific, 138; agent of Ameri- 
can Fur Co., 149, 157, 189, 191. 
269; land speculations. 259, 
260. 

Curtis, Daniel, early teacher, 
198, 194. 

Curtis, Irene, marries Rucker, 
193. 

Dx\.BLON, Jesuit superior, 28, 
45, 46, 49-53, 59, 178. 
" Dallas," revenue cutter, 175. 
D'Amariton, French commis- 
sioner, 86. 
Davis, Jefferson, marries Knox 

Taylor. 165. 
De Frontenac, governor of New 

France, 60, 61, 64,73. 
De Joinville, Prince, visits 

Green Bay, 228-226. 
De la Barre, governor of New 

France, 73. 
De Langlade, Augustin, settles 

Green Bay, 92-94, 97, 112; at 

Mackinac, 106. 



Index. 



279 



DeL 

De Langlade, Charles Michel, 
career of, 92-125, 191, 192; 
commission from Louis XV., 
107 ; death, 123, 124. 

De Lignery, Sieur Marchand, 
chastises Foxes, 85-87, 231. 

De Louvigny, chastises Foxes, 
84, 85. 

De Montigny, French com- 
mandant, 81, 83, 85. 

De Pere, Mcolet at, 13; Jesuits 
at, 34, 38, 51, 64, 68, 75, 92, 231; 
French fort at, 81 ; early 
quarry, 166 ; Schoolcraft at, 
176, 177; county seat, 264. 

De Peyster, Arent S., English 
commandant at Mackinac, 
117-120; Miscellames, 118. 

De Smet, Oregon 3Iisslo)is, 36. 

De Tonti, Henri, at Green Bav, 
69, 80. 

De Verville, Gautier, nephew 
of Charles de Langlade, 117- 
120. 

De Villiers. French command- 
ant, 95-97, 270, 271. 

Dickinson, Joseph, early set- 
tler, 162, 261. 

Dickinson, William, earlv set- 
tler, 162, 203, 239. 

Dickson, Robert, agent of 
Northwest Fur Co.. 137, 138, 
152 ; expedition against Prai- 
rie du Chien, 139-146. 

Dobbins, John, navigator, 151. 

Dodge, Henry, attorney-gen- 
eral, 264. 

Doty, James D., in early mur- 
der case, 170; territorial 
judge. 183,184, 247; council- 
lor, 260, 262, 263 ; vestryman, 
239 ; house at Shantvtown, 
187. 

Douglas, early teacher, 192. 

Doxtater, Polly, Oneida wo- 
man, 252. 

Doyle, hanged for murder, 
245, 246. 

Dreuilletes, missionary, with 
St. Lusson, 59. 

Ducharme, Angelique, cited, 
231. 

Ducharme fsimily, pioneers, 
131. 

Ducharme, Joseph, 131, 242, 
275. 

Duchesnean , intendant of New 
France, 40. 

Du Jauny, Jesuit missionary, 
93. 



FOS 

Du Lhut, Daniel Grayson. co«- 
reur de bois, 39, 40,* 67-71, 81. 

Durantaye, French command- 
ant at Mackinac, 71. 

Dutchman's Creek, 133, 142, 
150, 215. 



"C^LLIS, Albert G., 283; earlv 

-^ education, 162, 194, 197, 
214, 221 ; church warden, 
239; councillor, 261, 262; sur- 
veyor, 248 ; cited, 212. 

Enjalran, Jesuit missionary, 
67, 73. 

Episcopalians, early services 
of, 233, 238, 239; first church 
fair, 258, 259. 

Etherington, George, com- 
mandant at Mackinac, 106, 
112. 113. 



PANNING, A. C. W., Ameri- 

-L can commandant, 251. 

Fauvel, Catholic priest, 233. 

Folles Avoines. See Menomo- 
nee Indians. 

Follett, Dwight I., editor, 266. 

Follett, E. W., early Presby- 
terian, 241. 

Fort Crawford, 165. 

Fort Duquesne, Langlade at, 
100-103. 

Fort Edward Augustus, suc- 
cessor to St. Francis, 109-111, 
113. 

Fort St. Francis, built, 80, 81; 
Charlevoix at, 81-83; in Fox 
war. 80-92. 95; name changed 
to Edward Augustus, 109. 

Fort Snelling, Indian troubles 
at, 202. 203. 

Fort William Henrv, Lang- 
lade at, 102, 103. 

Fort Winnebago, built, 206. 

Ft. Howard (city), site visited 
by Nicolet, 13.' 

Fort Howard (post), 162, 165- 
169, 177, 194-198, 240, 251-256; 
established by Americans, 
148-155; in Red Bird war, 
203-205; in Black Hawk war, 
243-245; under Twiggs. 205. 
206; gay life at, 206-209; re- 
ligious services in, 232, 233, 
242; demolished, 256. See 
Forts St. Francis, and Ed- 
ward Augustus. 

Foster, Lieut., murdered by 
Doyle, 245, 246. 



28o 



Index. 



FOX 

Fox Indians, visited by Al- 
louez, 27, 33, 37, 38; war with 
French, 59-91, 95,96: inPon- 
tiac war, 114 ; in Red Bird 
war, 201. 

Fox-Wisconsin highway, 
mapped by Champhiin, 5 ; 
traveled by Marquette, 63; 
by Du Lhut, 68; by LaSeuer, 
69; closed in Fox war, 80; 
the Astoria adventurers, 138; 
improvement of, 206. 

Franks, Jacob, fur trader, 12G- 
129, 131, 138, 141. 

Frazer, William C, district 
judge, 264. 

French colonize Quebec, 3 ; 
explore Northwest, 4-9; dis- 
cover Wisconsin, 9-14; ex- 
plorations in Wiscmsin, 17- 
23. »S'ee Fur Trade, Jesuits, 
Langlades, Mackinac Isl- 
and, Fort St. Francis. 

French, Bella, History of Brown 
Co., 232,239,262. 

Fur Trade, Winnebagoes at 
Quebec, 4 ; under French, 7, 
17-25, 27, 39-46, 58-60, 67, 69- 
73, 76-91; the Langlades, 92- 
125; Northwest Co., 126-132; 
American Co., and inde- 
pendent traders, 133, 136, 137, 
141, 149, 151,157, 158,180, 181, 
185, 189-192, 250, 268-275; gov- 
ernment factories, 156-158. 

GARLIC Island, Dickson at, 
141-143, 145. 

Gazette, newspaper, 266. 

Ginty, George C, editor, 266. 

Gorrell, James, English lieu- 
tenant, 109-111, 113. 

Grass Island, Nicolet at, 11. 

Gratiot, J\[aior, American of- 
ficer, 153, 154. 

Green Bay (citv), visit of Nico- 
let, 10-i3; Radisson, 20-22: 
early fur trade, 27; Perrot, 
42-45: Jesuit missions, 28, 32- 
42, 45-56, 66-69; Marquette, 
62-65; La Salle, 69: La Hotan, 
70; early French fort, 81; 
Charlevoix, 81; the Lang- 
lades, 92-125; English occu- 
pancy, 109-132; Pontiac war, 
112-116; Reaume's court, 133- 
137; early American fur 
trade, 133, 136,137: the Astoria 
adventurers, 138; war of 
1812-15, 189-146; outlook after 
the war, 147, 148; arrival of 



HOR 

American troops, 152-155; 
American Fur Co., 149,153, 
157, 158, 189-192, 259. 260, 
268-275; fur trade factories, 
156,157; Red Bird war, 201- 
204; Indian council of 1830, 
246-249; Black Hawk war, 
243-245; hangings, 171, 246; 
adjustment of French land 
claims, 171-174; Major 
Twiggs, 205, 206; advent of 
New York Indians, 212-221; 
the Lost Dauphin, 210-230; 
lirst appearance of name on 
a map, 178: Schoolcraft's 
visit, 175, 176; Indian agen- 
cies. 149, 150, 249, 2.50; life 
at Fort Howard, 162-166, 
194-198, 206-209, 251-2.56; old 
times in Shantytown, 166- 
169; arrivals from the east, 
161, 162; first ferry, 197, 198; 
Arndt's inn, 199, 200; early 
schools, 159-161, 192-194,288, 
239; early churches, 231-243; 
first newspapers, 265-267; 
first bank, 260; early courts, 
180-189; land speculations, 
2.57-260; borough erected, 
260: meeting of legislative 
council, 261-263; chosen as 
county seat, 261,265; earlj' 
American life, 253,254. 
Green Bay (water), Nicolet on, 
10; described by Marquette, 
62, 63. 

TTANGINGS, early, 171, 246. 

Hanson, John H., The Lost 
Prince, 228. 

Hardwick, Moses, early mail- 
carrier, 169, 250, 251. 

Hart, Asahel, early Presbyter- 
ian, 241. 

Hebberd, S. ^., Wisconsin under 
French Dominion, 75. 

Hennepin, Louis, in Wiscon- 
sin, 67-69, 178. 

Hobart, Bishop, 213, 222. 

Hobart University, 238. 

Holland Church, first court- 
house, 265. 

Holton, Amos, early teacher, 
192, 193. 

Hoot Schoop (Four Legs), Win- 
nebago chief, 247. 

Horner, John W., acting gov- 
ernor of Michigan, 261-263. 

Horoji. See Winnebago In- 
dians. 



Index. 



281 



nos 

Hoskinson, George, editor, 266. 
Hunt, American olficer, 196. 
Hunt, Wilson, P., en route to 

Pacific, 138. 
Huron Indians, war with Win- 

nebagoes, 7; Nicolet with, 8, 

in ; Radisson with, 19, 20, 22; 

with Langlade, 100. 

TLLINOIS Indians, visited by 

-^ Nicolet, 14; bA' Allouez, 27; 
by Marquette, 61, 62, 65. 

Intelliqencer, early newspaper, 
265-267. 

Iroquois Indian^, war with 
Hurons, 19, 20, 26 ; relations 
with Wisconsin tribes 35, 43, 
44, 69, 71, 74, 79. 

Irvin, David, territorial judge, 
185, 186, 189. 

Irwin, Alexander J., earlv set- 
tler, 161, 189, 289, 245, 261. 

Irwin, Matthew, trading post 
factor, 156, 157; chief jiistice, 
180, 181. 

Irwin, Robert, early settler, 
161, 169. 

Irwin, Robert (Jr.), early set- 
tler, 161; clerk of court, 180; 
vestryman, 289. 

JACOBS, John Baptiste, early 

^ teacher, 192. 

Jesuits, Huron mission, 8 ; 
earlv Wisconsin missions, 
24-56, 61, 62, 66-69, 78-76, 81- 
83, 86, 87; Rdatinus, 5, 7, 12, 
25, 29, 35, 49, 178. 

Johnson, Thomas S., early 
teacher, 160. 

Johnston, George, earlv sher- 
iff, 159, 180, 203. 

Joliet, Louis, discovers Miss- 
issippi river, 19. 60-64 ; at 
Green Bay, 28; with St. Lus- 
son, 59. 

Jones, George W., congres- 
sional delegate, 262. 

Jourdain, Joseph, habitan, 221. 

Jonrdain, Madeline, marries 
Williams, 221. 

Juneau, Solomon, fur trader, 
234, 250. 

TZAKALING. See Kaukauna 

-*^ Rapids. 

Kaukauna Rapid*, Allouez at, 
38; Dablon at, 49, 50; School- 
craft at, 176. 

Kemper, Bishop, 213, 240, 249. 



LOR 

Ketauka, Chippewa murderer, 

171. 
Kickapoo Indians, in Fox war, 

75. 
Kinzie,Mrs. JohnH., Wau Bun, 

223, 245. 

T A BAYE. La Baye de.s 
^ Puants. La Baye Verte 

See Green BaJ^ 
La Hontan, Baron, at Green 

Bay. 70. 
Lake Michigan, 73, 177 ; early 
explorations of, 4, 9, 14, 20, 
30; Marquette on, 65, 66. 
Lake Sandv, Schoolcraft at, 

176. 
Lake Superior, explorations 
of, 5, 9, 19, 176 ; Jesuit mis- 
sions on, 26-28, 66, 80 ; copper 
mines, 57. 
Lake Winnebago, visited by 
Nicolet, 13 ; by Radisson, 21 ; 
by Allouez, 38 ; in Fox war, 
90 ; in war of 1812-15, 141- 
143,145; homeof the Winne- 
bagoes, 153, 154 ; New York 
Indians removed to, 218. 
Land claims, adjustment of, 

171-174. 
Land speculation, early, 257- 

260. 
La Pointe, Jesuit mission at, 

27, 28, 62. 
La Potherie, Bacqiieville de, 
Histoire de V Amerique sep- 
tentrionale, 58, 74. 78. 
L'Arbre Croche, English at, 

113, 114, 119. 
La Rose, land claimant, 174. 
Lawe, John, fur trader, 126, 
129, 188, 140, 141, 160, 175, 189, 
190, 192, 268 ; judge, 181, 183, 
189 ; vestryman, 239. 
La Salle, Chevalier de, at 

Green Bay, 69, 72. 
Langevin, Madame, pioneer, 

232. 
Lawrence, American com- 
mandant, 207. 
Lee, Lsa a c, adjusts French land 

claims, 172-174. 
Lee, Francis, American com- 
mandant. 256. 
Legral, pioneer, 116, 117. 
Leslie, Lieut., at Mackinac, 113. 
Long Tail Point, Nicolet' s 

visit, 11. 
Loring, H, H., American of- 
ficer, 195, 196. 



282 



Ttidcx. 



LOU 

Louis Philippe, at Green Bay, ! 
122 ; relations with Wil- " 
Hams, 223-230. 

McCALL, James, Indian com- 
missioner, 246-249. 
McGalpin, English sergeant, 

140. 
McKay, William, expedition 
against Prairie du Chien, 
144. 
Mackinac Island, Nicolet sees, 
9; Jesuits at, 28, 31, 50, 65, 
79; in Fox war, 59, 70, 77, 
78, 80, 88; Langlades at, 93, 
97. 108, 105, 106, 112-115, 117, 
118 ; under Northwest Fur 
Co., 126, 129, 137; ceded to 
United States, 132; seized 
by English, 139-141, 144, 156 ; 
under permanent American 
control, 148; American Ywx 
Co., 149, 151, 158, 178, 189, 
268 ; early court, 183. 
McNeil, John, American com- 
mandant, 194, 195, 197. 
Madison, William S., mur- 
dered by Indians, 170. 
Mail-carriers,early,169,250,251. 
Maloney, Maurice, American 

officer, 240. 
Marchand, pioneer, 117. 
Marcv, Ellen, marries McClel- 

lani 252. 
Marcy, Randolph, American 

officer, 251-252. 
Marin, Sieur Pierriere, chas- 
tises Foxes, 88-90. 
Marin, Sieur (cadet). French 

commandant, 98, 102. 
Marquette, James, at La 
Pointe, 28. 62; discovers 
Mississippi River, 19, 60-65 ; 
death, 66. 
Marsh, Cutting, Indian mis- 
sionary, 242. 
Martin. Mrs. Morgan, L. .cited, 

115, 192, 2.S0, 231. 
Martin, Morgan, L., at Green 
Bay, 186 ; trial of Prestige, 
205, 206 ; president of bo- 
rough, 260 ; cited, 183, 190, 
206.'^ 
Mascoutin Indians, visited by 
Nicolet, 13, 14 ; by Radis- 
son, 21, 22; by Allouez, 38 ; 
in Fox war, 75. 
Mason, acting governor of 

Michigan, 246-249, 261. 
Mazzuchelli, Samuel, Domin- 
ican friar, 248, 



NIC 

Membre, Jesuit missionary ,69 

Menard, R6ne, Jesuit mission- 
ary, 26. 

Menomonee Indians, visited 
by Allouez, 32, 39; Perrot 
with, 43 ; in Fox war, 59, 71, 
84; with Langlade, 100; in 
Pontiac war, 114-116, 125 ; 
in war of 1812-15, 139 ; under 
American supremacy, 152, 
194 ; relations with New 
York Indians, 213, 214, 218, 
221, 246-249 ; in Black Hawk 
war, 244, 245. 

Menommeeville. See Shanty- 
town. 

Merrill, Curtis M., American 
commandant, 256. 

Merrill, Moses E., American 
officer, 251, 2.54. 

Methodists, early services of, 
240. 241. 

Miami Indians at Green Bay, 
38, 58. 

Michigan Territory, possesses 
Wisconsin, 179, 180, 182. 

Michillimackinac. See Mack- 
inac. 

Miller, John, brings troops to 
Green Bay, 150-154, 165. 

Milwaukee, 250, 251 ; early In- 
dians at, 119, 120 ; land spec- 
ulations, 257, 258. 

Mitchell, William, early Pres- 
byterian, 241. 

Montcalm, general-in-chief of 
New France, 102, 104, 105. 

Montigny, French command- 
ant, 152. 

Moran, Edward, on Lieut. Gor- 
rell, IIL 

Mornaux, Louis, married by 
Reaume, 135. 

Morse, Jedidiah, report on 
western tribes, 175, 212, 232. 

ISJAVARINO (town), platted, 

-'-^ 237, 2:^8; land specula- 
tions at, 257, 258 ; early news- 
paper, 265. 

Nelson, I. S., American officer, 
195. 

New France. See French. 

Newspapers, early, 250, 251, 265- 
267. 

New York Indians, removal to 
Wisconsin, 175, 194, 212-221, 
246-249. 

Nicolet, Jean, explores the 
Northwest, 6-9 ; first white in 
Wisconsin, 9-14. 



Index. 



28 



NIS 

Nissowaquet, Ottawa chief, 
93, 94. 

Noquet Indians, Nicolet visits, 
9, 10. 

Northwest Fur Company, 126- 
132. 

Nouvel, Henri, Jesuit mission- 
ary, 50, 67. 

C^'FALLON, Ben, American 

^^ officer, 153. 

Ogden, William B., land spec- 
ulator, 259. 

Ogemawnee, chief of Menomo- 
nees, 114. 

Ogilvie, Gillespie & Co., fur 
traders, 126. 

Ojibways. Hce Chippewa In- 
dians. 

Oneida Indians, removal to 
Wisconsin, 218, 252 ; in Red 
Bird war, 203 ; relations with 
Eleazar Williams, 211-218. 

Onondaga Indians, proposed 
removal to Fox River, 213. 

Outatouacs. 8ee Ottawa In- 
dians. 

Otchagras. See Winnebago In- 
dians. 

Ottawa Indians, visited by 
Radisson,20; early missions 
to, 28 ; visited bv Marquette, 
61 ; with Langlades, 99, 100. 

Ouinebegoutz. See Winnebago 
Indians. 

Outagamies. See Fox Indians. 

pARKMAN, Francis, Old Rc- 

-*- (jime, 39 ; Pioneers of New 
France, 45 ; Discovery of Great 
West, 58 ; Half Century 'of Con- 
flict, 85 ; Montcalm and Wolfe, 
99, 102, 104. 

Feet, Stephen, Presbyterian 
missionary, 242. 

Perrot, Nicholas, fur trader, 
42-45, 58. 59, 70-80, 176, 189, 
215; with St. Lusson, 57, 58. 

Pinkney, Niuian, American 
commandant, 194, 197, 215. 

Pontiac uprising, 112-116. 

Portage (city), 13, 250; in Fox 
war, 86; Red Bird's surren- 
der, 203; Twiggs at, 206; as a 
boundary ot Brown Co., 180. 

Porlier, .Jacques, fur trader, 
126, 129, 144, 149, 159, 189; 
chief juslice, 181-183. 

Porlier, Louis, fur trader, 268. 

Porter, Jeremiah, early 
preacher, 227, 242. 



RIV 

I'ottawattomie Indians, visit- 
ed by Allouez, 27-29, 81, 33; 
Perrot with, 43, 78; in Fox 
war, 59, 84; with Langlade, 
100. 

Powell, Peter, in war of 1812- 
15, 144. 

Prairie du Chien, fur trade, 
126; British expedition 
against, 1.S9-146; Red Bird 
uprising, 201-204; adjustment 
of French land claims, 171- 
174. 

Pritchard, Richard, school 
patron, 160. 

Presbvteriaus, earlv services 
of, 233, 241, 242. 

Prestige, William, attempt to 
murder Twiggs, 205, 206. 

Puants. S(.c Winnebago In- 
dians. 

J> ABBIS, early settler, 142. 

Radisson, Sieur, explores VVis- 
consin, 17-24, 40. 

Reaume, Charles, justice of 
the peace, 133-137, 150. 180, 
181. 

Recollect friars, in Wisconsin, 
67-69. 

Red Banks, first home of Win- 
nebagoes, 11. 

Red Bird,AViunebago avenger, 
202-204. 

Reny, Lievit., geographical 
survey, 175. 

Republican, early newspaper, 
266. 

Richard, Gabriel, vicar-gen- 
eral, 232. 

River Black, Menard on, 26. 

River Chippewa, RadLsson on, 
22. 

RiverEast, 40, 41, 162. 

River Fox, Nicolet on, 11-14; 
Radisson, 21-28; Allouez, 28, 
32-42; Dablon, 49, 50; Mar- 
quette, 63; Du Lhut and 
Hennepin, 68, 178, 179; La 
Hontan, 70; Charlevoix, 81- 
83: arrival of Langlades, 114, 
115; American fur trade on, 
126, 133, 138, 148, 156-158; the 
voi/aqeurs, 270, 271; in war 
of' 1812-15, 139-146; arrival of 
American troops, 152-155; 
tirst ferrv, 197, 198; arrivalof 
New York Indians, 212-221, 
246-249; first steamboat, 174, 
175. 



2S4 



Index. 



RIV 

River Menominee, 94; Menard 
on, 26 ; Allouez on, 35 ; fur 
trade on, 268. 

River Mississippi, discovery 
by Radisson, 22 ; by Joliet 
and Marquette, 19, 60-64; 
fur trade on, 76, 79, 80, 126, 
130, 178; in Fox war, 90; ex- 
ploration to sources of, 175, 
176; Indian uprising on, 202. 

River Neeuah, early name for 
Fox, 11. 

River St. Croix, 183. 

River AVisconsin.- early ex- 
plorers on, 13, 19, 26, 68, 264 ; 
fur trade on, 268; boundary 
of Brown Co., 180. 

River Wolf, 13; Allouez's mis- 
sion on, 38. 

Riviere Glaise. Hee Dutch- 
man's Creek. 

Riviere du Diable. >S'ee River 
East. 

Roads (military), established, 
250. 

Robinson, Albert, early edi- 
tor, 266. 

Robinson, Charles D., early 
editor, 266. 

Robinson, John C, American 
officer, 251, 252, 255. 

Rocheblave, fur trader, 129. 

Roman Catholics, 231-233, 241- 

243. Sec Jesuits. 

Root, Erastus, Indian com- 
missioner, 246-249. 

Root, William, American offi- 
cer, 240, 255. 

Rosselle, W. B., American offi- 
cer, 251. 

Roy, Amable, pioneer, 117. 

Roy tamily, pioueers, 131. 

Roy, Joseph, pioneer. 116, 117. 

Rj'an, Samuel. American offi- 
cer, 240 ; early editor, 266. 

Ryan, James,early editor, 266. 

SAC Indians, visited by Al- 
louez, 27, 33, 38, 54; in Fox 
war, 81-83, 85. 95-97; in Pon- 
tiac war, 114; in war of 1812- 
15,139; in Red Bird uprising, 
201 ; in Black Hawk war, 

244, 245. 

St. Francis Xavier mission. 

See Green Bay, Jesuits at. 
St. Lusson, Daumont takes 

possession of Morthwest, 57- 

60. 
St. Regis Indians, on Fox 

River, 247. 



TAS 

Sault Sie. Marie, 27; Nicolet 
at, 9: Jesuits at, 28, 29, 39, 
53; St. Lusson's visit, 58. 

Schools, early, 159-161, 192-194, 
233-239. 

Schoolcraft, Henry R., at 
Green Bay, 176; 'History of 
Indian Tribes, 5 ; Journal, 
176. 

Scott, Martin, American 
officer, 2.51-253, 255. 

Shantvtown, 237; early life 
in, 166-169; early schools, 
193, 233; early church, 242, 
243; a garrison episode, 207- 
209; county seat, 181, 185. 

Shavlor, Ephraim. in charge 
of Ft. Howard, 256. 

Shea, John G., Catholic Church 
in Colonial Days, 26, 36, 56. 

Sholes, Charles C., early edi- 
tor, 265. 

Sibley, Caleb, American offi- 
cer, 251. 

Silvey, Jesuit missionary, 67. 

Sioux Indians, 67, 113. 

Sister Clare, hospital nun, 243. 

Slaughter, William B., register 
of land office, 257. 

Smith, Edmund Kirby, Amer- 
ican officer, 177, 207-209, 251, 
255. 

Smith, Joseph Lee, American 
commandant, 165, 166, 177, 
194. 

Southwest Fur Co., 138. 

Stambaugh, Samuel, Indian 
agent, 245. 249. 

Stearns, John W., Columbian 
History of Education in Wis- 
consin, 238. 

Stephenson, William, early 
editor, 265, 

Stockbridge Indians, in Red 
Bird war, 203; removal to 
Fox River, 213, 218, 242. 

Strong, Moses M., History of 
Wisconsin Territory, 257, 263. 

Stuart, Robert, land specula- 
tor, 260; fur trader, 269. 

Sturgeon Bay, Allouez at, 66. 

Suvdam, John V., early print- 
er, 234, 264, 265. 

rpAILHAN, R. P. J., Nicolas 

J- Pcrrot, 43, 78, 264, 

Ttilon, Jean, intendant of 

New France, 57, 60, 61. 
Tasse, Joseph, on Langlade, 

125. 



I/n/i'x. 



^Ss 



TAY 
Taylor, Knox, marries JetFer- 

soii Davis, 165. 
Taylor, Zachary, American 

commandant, 165. 
Teas, Josiah B., councillor, 

262. 
Thwaites, Reuben G., Story of 

Wisconsin, 9, 11, 13, 14, 26,75, 

179, 245. 
Tomah, Menomonee chief, 116, 

152, 153. 
Turner, Frederick J., Fur 

Trade in Wisconsin, 40, 98, 

129, 190. 
Tuscarora Indians, proposed 

removal to Fox River, 213. 
Twiggs, David E., command- 
ant at Ft. Howard, 205, 206. 

Y'AUDREUIL, ]\rarquis de, 
^ governor of New France, 

102, 103, 106. 
Vermilion Island, 152. 
Yimont, Jesuit missionary, 12, 

25. 

U WALK-IN-THE-WATER," 
' ' early steamer, 174, 175. 

Ward, David, Recolkctions, 239. 

Washington Island, origin of 
name, 151. 

W^histler, William, American 
commandant, 160, 177, 197, 
198. 203-205. 

White, George, Methodist mis- 
sionary, 240. 

W^hitnev, Daniel, earlv settler, 
161, 237, 239. 

Williams, Eleazar, Indian mis- 
sionarv, 195, 232, 247 ; poses 
as the Lost Dauphin,210-230. 



WRI 

Williams, Thomas, father of 
Eleazar, 214, 229. 

Winuebago Indians, heard of 
by Champlain, 5 ; war with 
Hnrons, 7; Nicolet with, 
8-13; Jesuits with, 25-56; in 
Huron war, 71 ; in Fox war, 
81-85; with Langlade. 100; in 
Pontiac war, 114 : relations 
with Americans, 153, 154, 170, 
194; in Red Bird uprising, 
201-204; relations with New 
York Indians, 213, 214, 216- 
218, -246-249; 

Winnepagous. See Winnebago 
Indians. 

Wisconsin Democrat, early 
newspaper, 262, 265, 266. 

Wisconsin Free Press, early 
newspaper, 265. 

Wisconsin Heights, battle of, 
245. 

Wisconsin Historical Collections, 
cited, 8, 11. 17, 36, 51, 86, 98, 
109, 110, 112, 118, 125, 139, 141, 
154, 160, 174, 180, 182, 184, 203, 
206, 212, 230, 238, 244, 249. 

Wisconsin State Historical 
Society, 75, 114. 120, 136, 137. 

Wisconsin Territory, organ- 
ized, 263, 264. 

Wisconsin University of Green 
Bay, 238. 

Winsor, Justin, Narrative and 
Critical History of America, 
179. 

Wright, A. M., American of- 
ficer, 195. 



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